How I Spent My Summer
by The Threat
Summary: Imagine being a tourist, travelling around a world, where all that is fiction is real...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is created by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Apart from the narrator of this story, not one character used here is mine.

Note: this story takes place in continuity with the comics, not the movie (and no, there's no category for this in the comics section)

* * *

My life in a nutshell (or some form there-of):

I wasn't born when World War III started, but I was before it ended. So I can say that I lived to see how many bombs were dropped, which nearly wiped us all out. And then I haven't begun to talk about the many occasions in which our planet was invaded by extra-terrestrials, the millennium bug, or even that time when global warming caused such a storm, it nearly catapulted us back to the ice-age. Ironically, it was global warming which caused it to come, but it was the same that caused it to go away just as soon.

All in all, I'm surprised anyone, or anything, managed to survive such devastating events. Including myself. After those things took place, one of the first things humanity thought of doing was to rebuilt everything. I have no idea why they decided not to rebuilt the Channel Causeway, I can only assume that they wanted to rebuilt it but only just spent all the needed money. Oh well, I guess this would be just another one of this world's many oddities.

So now that you know how I feel about this world, or how I witnessed many devastating events, I suppose you now want to know more about me. Strange as this may sound, I remember when I was a kid, during one of these school outings in the woods, I saw something. To this day, I'm still not sure of what it was that I saw, but when I was a kid it looked like there were little blue creatures in the woods, wearing white clothes and a white hat, living in mushrooms. When I told people I saw exactly that, not only did nobody believe me, it gave my classmates a reason to make fun of me for the rest of my school life. The strangest, and perhaps even the funniest part of that, is that a point came that my classmates didn't even remember why they were making fun of me, they merely did it out of habit rather than with reason. What's really strange about all this is that similar creatures were mentioned in the legends of Gargamel, which I read once I was older. So if what I saw was a trick of the mind, how could I possible think to have seen creatures of which I had never even heard about?

Altogether, it's safe to say that I didn't have much of what you'd call a happy life, if at all a life. I don't think anyone could have because once something was built up, something came (storm, aliens, meteors,...) to wreck it all. So far, I've managed to find a job in cleaning up factories. Not much fun, but it pays quite well. Besides, since I'm still a single man, without kids or pets to take care of, I can say that economically speaking I'm much richer than anyone else I know. Still,... having nothing to do but to watch some TV, watching my entire DVD-collection over and over again, I can't even say how many times I've watched the "Stab" or "Jack Slater" movies so far, or even read all the "Captain Baseball-Bat Boy" comics over and over again. Bottom line is, I can sit here being bored out of my skull only for so long. That's why I asked the months of July and August off, so I can take a trip around the world.

According to my resources, it's cheaper to go to France, through the Chunnel into England and buy a ticket to go to the US, than it is to buy a ticket here in my own country. How this works, I'm not sure. This wouldn't be another one of our politicians tricks to make life more difficult than it already is. So anyway, today I'm preparing everything for my trip. Other than my journal, I'll be taking some of my favorite music, the first "Tracer Bullet" novel, all for all the boring times, and of course some clean clothes, or other ones depending on the weather conditions. Which reminds me that I still got to buy myself a Swiss knife and a lighter. I don't smoke, but such things could always come in handy all the same. Hopefully I'll be ready in time, as I'll be leaving in only a few days.


	2. Chapter 2

Saturday, June 28 2008

I got up early in the morning, so I could leave the country soon enough. To save up as much as I could, I decided that I should hitch my way into France, rather than take a train, bus, or any form of public transport to get there. The ride I hitched was a red Citroën 2CV, which dragged a yellow home-trailer. This was funny to me, as I remembered to have been to a circus in the Netherlands, where there were two men who also drove a red car and a yellow trailer. In any event, this car was driven by a man with a dog, a bobtail to be more specific, which strange as it may sound, could talk. And let me be the one to tell you this, you don't want to enter in debate with a dog that keeps switching the "r" and the "l" in the word "problem".

When I asked them where they were going, they told me they were going to Bretagne. Upon answering, they showed me a leaflet which had pictures of the area. One of these pictures was of a statue, portraying a tall muscular man and a smaller plumply one. The description underneath the picture said the men were Astérix and Obélix, respectively. Both are well-known heroes in that area, though knowing that this statue was likely made by somebody who lived hundreds of years after both of these guys were already dead, I doubt that either one of them even looked like that statue. The dog I mentioned disagreed and started spouting... a lot of senseless words. After he was done talking, his owner corrected every single word he meant by stating what he might have meant to say, but by the time he was finished, I forgot what we were arguing about. I only remember it now, since I'm writing it down and thinking back about what happened some time ago.

Later, the two of them turned on their radio, which played their own songs. A bit narcistic of them, though, to only listen to their own music. When I asked them if they wouldn't wanna put on something else, the dog went furious. The man, not so much, but it didn't look as though he disagreed. In order to prevent any more conflicts like these, we agreed that I could still drive along with them, but they'd rather have me drive in their trailer, rather than in the car. I don't particularly mind, as I could listen to whatever artist I liked, as well as I could read a book, rather than having to sit with them discussing any of their childish subjects. It should be noted, however, that the dog sounded very old, and still talked as if it were a child, just like it's owner, who was already turning gray, despite that he tries to hide his age by using too much hair-gel.

Only a few seconds ago, we were stopped by the police. I had no idea where we were, but I reckoned we were near the borders. An old man, a policeman by the looks of it, asked the driver some questions, after which the old man searched the car, then the trailer. The old man, who smelled like he needed to go to one of those anti-alcohol meetings, did get surprised to see me, but it didn't seem like I was the one he was looking for. He turned the entire trailer upside down, just to find this certain somebody. At some point, that old man swore his head off when wondering how far a man, who just woke up from a coma can run. In that same sentence, he wondered whether the man he searched is really Irish or from another planet. I remember to have heard of some shoot-out having happened last winter in which an Irish man was involved, as well as a British and an American. That Irish guy is still in this country? How is that possible? When the old man swore all that, his partner, who appeared a lot more mature in comparison (despite being much younger), reminded him that what he swore about wasn't something the general public was supposed to hear.

Once this search was over, I managed to read a little more of "Tracer Bullet". So far, it looks quite promising, but that's to be expected, especially since the book is written by the same guy who created "Stupendous Man" and "Spaceman Spiff". Wonder where this guy got all the inspiration just to write all this. He must have quite the imagination.

Once we arrived in Calais, the car stopped so I could get out. Just in time, so I could catch the Chunnel's train that would take me to England. This will be when my journey really begins.

Sunday, June 29 2008:

Okay, how should I describe what happened while going through the Chunnel yesterday? Should I write what Great-Britain's Home Office wants me to write, or just the truth? The truth however is that I can only write what I saw before my eyes, but I'm not sure of what really happened.

The trip went smoothly in the beginning, until the train abruptly stopped driving. Nobody knew what was happening, but when water seemed to run through the train, everybody knew they had to run away. Not that would help much, because if there's water in the train, there'll be water in the Chunnel as well. Strangely, when looking out the window, I saw no such thing. Unless I'm mistaking, water should get in the Chunnel first, before it reaches inside any of the trains. But then, shouldn't the train be moving in any way? Knowing that there's no water out there, I used one of those emergency hammers that broke the window, after which I managed to jump out. From where I stood then, I saw something... weird, at the beginning of the train. It looked as though it was gone. Instead, there was some kind of light. What's even weirder, it appeared to be some kind of magnet, as all the metals I had on me appeared attracted to it. But it didn't end there. As I moved closer, I saw what appeared to be huge fish, under the train's rails. How did those get in here? Furthermore, what were they? They didn't look like any known fish. Plus given the state they were in, and how they did or didn't smell, I'd say they've been lying there for a long time.

After a few hours, people from the British Home Office came, told us that we somehow got disconnected from the first wagons, that the water we saw came from the train's cooling systems, and the fish were from an earlier incident in which the Chunnel was breached, and people forgot to clean up the fish. This statement was much to the dismay of many, as they claimed to have seen the first wagons disappearing in that light I described earlier. Some even claimed to have seen some kind of sea-monsters. But the people from Home Office asked them that if there were some kind of light, where is it now? Though it is true that the light has disappeared after some time, I'm sure this wasn't some trick of my mind. I should look up what this Chunnel is made of, to check for magnets, and look up one of these aforementioned incidents when I return home.

All in all, I finally arrived in England after all, looked for the cheapest hotel I could find, where I've spend the night. I was too tired to write anything about those events last night, so I had to do it this morning. Okay, it's 2 am, but it still counts as morning. I was so tired, I went to bed hours before my bedtime. Being in that Chunnel, all anxious as everybody was, then stand up for hours on in, in another, less comfortable small train, where I had the bad luck to not find myself a place to sit, and yet still found my way into London, or it's suburbs. It was 6 pm when I arrived at my hotel room, after which I immediately went into bed, without supper, and now I'm really hungry. I wish I had taken some food with me, but some of the aviation rules forbids all that. I was at all lucky that I could get a permit to bring a Swiss knife.

If you're curious about London's nightlife, I can tell you I've seen something I never thought I would see. I saw a man jumping from one rooftop to another, wearing a long black cape, a pointy hat and a white mask, which bore something of a nasty grin. No idea of who or what that was, but if he's sneaking through the night, that means he was on the prowl for something. Hopefully, the fact that I'm the only one with the lights on in the middle of the night, was enough to scare him away. I imagine he wouldn't want there to be any witnesses to whatever it is that he's doing.


	3. Chapter 3

Sunday, June 29 2008, morning:

The day (meaning, after the sun rose, as I was already awake for several hours) couldn't start any weirder. I was having breakfast, or something that looked like it, when suddenly something appeared out of nowhere. I don't know what it was, nor how it appeared on my food. All I do know is that it was a kind of glittering metallic thing, which I could carry with my own hand very easily. It even looked as though it had a seat on it, big enough to fit a mouse maybe, and two levers. Is this some kind of transport vehicle for mice? Given that I've already met a talking dog, it wouldn't surprise me. Still, I tried the two levers, but nothing happened. I asked one of the employees, who claimed to never have seen anything like it in his life. He did, however, state that the hotel once belonged to a scientist, who at some point in the late 19th century mysteriously vanished without a trace. How that ties with this little machine, I wasn't sure, but neither was the employee. In the end, since it has no real owner as it appears, I thought I could keep it for myself. A sort of weird souvenir of having been in England.

A short time later, I left the hotel and went to a nearby shopping mart. I've been told that airplane food isn't something you'd want to advise anyone to eat. And if you'd eat something at the airport before boarding a plane, the prices are ridiculously high. With this in mind, I thought of buying my own food to eat there before boarding the plane. I was surprised, however, to see that the people responsible for the shopping carts were all... well, dead. I'm not kidding, they all appeared rotting away, actually even smelled like it. I'd dare to say they all died years ago. They wouldn't be remnants of that zombie-outbreak that took place a few years back, would they? If they are, I'm surprised to see they're still... alive. Shouldn't they've been wasted completely by now?

Once I was done shopping for my lunch, I hitched a ride to Heathrow. By the way, if you're ever in England, never ride in a yellow Mini. Seriously, you don't want to risk ending up in a car with this man, Bean I believe he called himself. I'm not sure, as when I asked him anything, al he did was mumble some kind of gibberish. But that's not why you should avoid driving with him. Can you imagine he'd let his teddy bear drive the car every once in a while? What's wrong with this man? It wasn't long until I decided to get out of the car. He was sad, but I hope this would help him realize how he does, or even doesn't, drive.

I arrived at what looked like a bookshop. In the hope that I could find some transport, perhaps call a taxi cab or something, I entered. But when I asked the owner if I could use his phone, he didn't take notice. He wondered if I wanted to buy a book. Funny he asked, as I saw him shout at somebody who talked to him before me, who actually did want to buy a book. Does this guy even want anyone in his store? If not, why did he start one? Luckily, the shop's assistant was a little friendlier and offered me a ride.

So I finally arrived at Heathrow, where I had the time to write in this journal. Finally some kind of rest. Okay, forget about that. A man just got called on his cell-phone. Though it wasn't your everyday phone, as this one was at twice as big as the man's own head. When he answered the phone, he shouted "Hello", as the phone's microphone was too far away from his mouth, which made him obliged to talk louder. I'd be glad to get out of this country full of weirdos.

No idea of the right time:

It's been hours since the plane took off. I'm not sure in what time-zone I am. My watch says it's past midday, but I'm not so sure of that just yet. It will still be some time before I arrive in Florida, but in my currant situation, I can't arrive too soon.

I almost wished to not have taken this plane, as I'm sitting next to a woman who doesn't even belong here. Given how she's dressed, how she talks, how she acts (with her head up in the air, and her husband being submissive), I wonder how she ended up in a cheap flight and second class. But judging from what she's saying, she wasn't supposed to be siting here either, which she blames her husband for. He, of course tries to convince her otherwise, which is like trying to fit an elephant in a baby's suit. Just seconds ago, this same woman remarked how "uncivilized" it is of me to be writing right now. It's supposed to be "too common". Not to mention that she thought there was something wrong about how I took my journal out. This woman sounds even worse than my own mother.

Monday, June 30 2008 (according to my watch):

In England, I had to turn back my watch for one hour, but here in Florida, I'm not so sure. According to my watch, it's hours past midnight, but here it looks like the sun has only just set. I asked somebody for the correct time, set my watch accordingly. But then the most terrible thing happened. Because I had a Swiss knife with me, the American security guards thought I was planning a terrorist attack. If I was, would I show them I had a knife with me? They didn't believe me. Even when I showed them my permit, they thought it was forged. Right now, I'm in custody, allowed to only have my journal with me. They didn't think there'd be any harm in doing this, or so they said. If it weren't, why did they have a guard that kept watching me? Welcome to the land of the free, I should say. The only advantage there is to this, is that now I wouldn't have to pay a hotel to stay for the night.


	4. Chapter 4

Monday, June 30 2008, local time:

At some point in the morning, the authorities didn't find anything to keep me locked up for, so they had no other option but to let me go. They didn't actually say that, instead they apologized as much as they could, gave me back everything, and so forth. Except for that metallic thing I found in England, they didn't give me that. In fact, some even went as far as to say that I never had it in my bag. It still took a few hours before I left, as it took them that long to find it again. Or so they say. Either they thought it to be quite suspicious, as nobody had ever seen anything like it, so they investigated it, and with me craving to get it back, they decided to look more into it, only to conclude that they don't know what it is. That, or they knew what it was, but realized it's broken, therefor worthless to them. In either case, they returned it to me, and I took the bus, which brought me to Miami.

Maybe getting to Miami wasn't such a great idea. Upon entering, there was a car-chase, which ended with the chased car hitting the bus I was in. All of the passengers were alright at first, not so sure about the driver, but when the chased driver started shooting the policemen chasing him..., well, I must say I wonder where these cops learned to shoot, especially those two black guys, who appeared to be the ones in charge, who kept swearing their heads of using fifty words per second. Once they had the man in their clutches, they started to sing "Bad boys, bad boys" for whatever reason. Their happy mood faded when they found a dead body in the car's trunk. Again, they started to use fifty words per second, until I told them there are people in this bus who needed medical help, including myself, as I got shot in my arm. On of these black guys I mentioned, the tallest one, tried to shut me up by telling me there's a dead body, but I told him the body would still be dead when he finished helping the living.

The shot in my arm turned out to be just a flesh-wound. I should count myself lucky, as I need that arm to write in my journal. Once my arm was treated, I was approached by some blond guy, a Lieutenant Caine I think his name was. He asked me what I saw, I told him exactly how reckless these cops were, trying to show off. It appeared all he needed to hear, but then some other guy showed himself, which didn't seem to be much to Caine's liking. Apparently, to the police, this particular guy isn't exactly somebody who's liked by everybody. Then again, judging from what he told Caine, I deduced they thought the dead body in the trunk was alive at first, but shot dead in the fire-fight. But this guy, a coroner by the sounds of it, has found out the body was already dead before it was even put in the trunk. Despite that discovery, Caine couldn't get himself to complement the coroner. I remember him saying: "Dexter. You know you're not supposed to talk about such things in front of people."

With these cops fighting amongst each other about who gets to take the case, I decided to sneak out of there. Once out of ear-sight, I realized I haven't even been in the States for much longer than a day and already I'm involved in some kind of crime. "Welcome to Miami." I sighed at some point, at which some group of guys replied: "Party in the city where the heat is on". No idea why they did that, what I do know is that I only ended in Florida because it was the cheapest flight I could get, not because I like a sunny area. My first order of business is to get out as soon as possible.

I found a truck-driver who could take me as far as to a place called Clearwater. It's not outside of Florida, but it's up North, which is at least close to it, I suppose. So I'm driving along, as I'm writing this. I don't know the driver's name, as he didn't tell me, nor did I ask him. It's funny, as so far I've met people who wouldn't shut up about themselves, but he wouldn't even think of introducing himself. So far, I'm sure he's the friendliest person I've met here in the States. Though, he talks through his radio to other drivers, and judging from the sound of their voices they didn't particularly like the driver. It was through them that I found out he calls himself Rusty Nail. Only seconds ago, he started to threaten people that he'd rip their jaws out if they wouldn't stop treating him the way they do. He also stressed that he has done it before and got away with it. I'm sure he's bluffing, but his anger wasn't played, given how he threw away the microphone he used. He looked surprised to see that I wasn't upset to see him like this, but he didn't ask me why that was. Honestly, my parents would throw with things for less, they get ticked off much easier than this guy did. Given that I've been treated in similar ways as he was, I don't blame him for his temper either. Apart from that, it's a quiet ride. I only hope he actually was bluffing when he threatened to rip off peoples' jaws.

Tuesday, July 1 2008:

When I woke up the next morning, I noticed that Rusty Nail had some red stains on his clothes. Either he just got in a fight and is wounded, or he spilled a little too much ketchup. Or did he really try to hurt somebody? I don't know, but I decided to not ask him anything about it.

He dropped me off in Clearwater, like he said he would. Still, it was somewhere in the middle of the city, so I had to find a way out of there, so I could hitch another ride out. On my way, I encountered a torn down building, where people were sitting, camping. A passer-by told me that the building used to be the Scientology complex, and that the people camping there are Scientologists with nowhere else to go. Also according to that passer-by, Scientology promises it's followers it will grant them super-powers. Everyone believed it to be a whole lot of crap, but rumor has it that somebody actually did acquire powers of some kind, which he or she used to destroy the building. And he or she didn't just destroy it at random, he or she made sure that the remains of the building are put down in such a way, it would read as "el Barto" from the sky. I believe this is something the Americans call a tall tale, it has to be as I find it hard to believe this to be true, especially the "el Barto" bit. It's like looking at a skunk and realize it looks like an ex of yours. But then, Americans are quite gullible, they actually still believe that God is responcible for everything, and that it's his will that the people would go to war. But then, that must mean he's not at all...

Okay, I don't remember what I wanted to write there exactly. What I do remember is that while I was writing this, a storm broke loose, and a lightning almost hit me. Knowing that I was about to write a bad word about the Christian god, some would say that God himself decided to strike me down. If that's the case, then he only just proved what I was trying to say: that God is anything but benevolent. In every which way you put it, God is an even worse parent than my own parents were. All the more reason for me to defy his authority.


	5. Chapter 5

In Clearwater, I found a leaflet that spoke of Cape Canaveral, where they've got a launchpad that would send people to the moon. Rather than having to spend millions of money on buying parts which will be destroyed afterwards, much like what they still use in Europe, they use ways to shoot planes into outer space directly, much like an airplane leaving the grounds to fly in the sky. Bottom line is, buying a ticket here to go into space is a lot cheaper here in America, than it is trying to buy your way into a ship in Europe. That's why I'm on a bus right now on my way to Cape Canaveral.

Once there, I didn't hesitate to buy myself a ticket. However, since there are many people who still wanted to go to the moon, and this is something of a busy season, I can only go to the moon by the end of the month, August 4th to be more accurate. No matter. For one, other than the States, I was hoping to get to Australia, then to the more eastern countries of Europe, then slowly make my way back home. In other words, I now got exactly twenty-six days to see the rest of the States, only to come back here and go to the moon.

Meanwhile, as I'm writing this, I'm on the back of a pick-up truck, which is on it's way to Georgia. Hopefully, my journey will run a little smoother from her on in.

Wednesday, July 2 2008:

In Georgia, I managed to charter a small plane that took me to North Carolina. When I say "small", I do mean small, as there was hardly any room in there for me to breath, let alone even trying to write anything down. Also, the city I ended up in was quite impressive to look at. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was New York City, but I didn't recognize any of the buildings, plus some passer-by pointed out to me that this was Metropolis. So if I get this right, somebody built a metropolis city and decided to call it Metropolis? Then again, when I planned on this journey, and tried to find the town of Springfield, upon which the well-known TV-show was based, I found there are over 30 cities by that name. I guess that whoever built up this city wanted to be original, wanted to be sure that his name was unique, etcetera.

On a side note, since I couldn't find Springfield, I decided not to go there.

Right now, I'm in a hotel room, in another city, just one hour driving from Metropolis. Gotham City, I think this one is called. I must say, this night has been quite an adventure.

I was on my way to find a hotel where I could stay, when I suddenly noticed a disturbance going on in a nearby cemetery. I didn't hear any guns being fired, so I didn't think there'd be much, if any trouble if I were to take a peek at what was going on. I sneaked onto the cemetery grounds, got as close as I could, but still didn't see much. That is to say, I saw a group of men fighting another man, but from where I stood, I missed much of the action. I tried climbing into a nearby tree, hoping that from a higher angle I could see more. Which I did, but I still couldn't believe what I was seeing. The men attacking the one men were all dressed to look like clowns. As for the one man, I couldn't be sure, but I could swear he had pins on his head and wore a dark cape. This guy trying to look like a bat or something?

At some point, the fight stopped and the clowns retreated. Hoping that I wouldn't be seen or heard, I tried to sneak away. But I forgot one thing: I was in a tree, upon a branch which could break with every wrong move I made. Which it did, causing me to fall down, hard, on some rich man's grave. I say rich because this man could obviously afford to buy more than just a standard tombstone. The grave in question belonged to a Bruce Wayne, who lived in 1910-2003. I remember myself thinking "Damn, that guy got old", when that bat-guy stood near me and had me by my shirt's collar. He asked me who I am and what I'm doing here. As a reply, I mumbled something in my own language. The man then thought he didn't have much use for me, so he tossed me aside and left the area. I didn't think that being foreign of origin would help me get out of this sticky situation.

It wasn't long before I finally found a cheap hotel. In this hotel, I found a young couple, who like me were just passing through the city. They were on their way to West-Virginia. It's not on my list of places I want to go, but from what I heard about that state, if you like nature, it is thé place to be. Well, I suppose it's time for me to get out of the big cities and into the wild.

* * *

Note: since the "Simpsons" tv-series always opens with the family coming home from their daily routines, sitting in front of the TV and (apparently) watching their own show, I consider what happens in the opening sequences as canon to this universe, and not what happens after that.


	6. Chapter 6

Thursday, July 3 2008:

As I'm writing this, I'm driving through the West-Virginian woods, up on the mountains, along with the couple I mentioned yesterday. They were listening to the radio at first, but at a certain point they didn't receive much of the transmissions, so they played some music of their own, namely songs sung by this Lizzie. I'm more into Pinheads and the Seventh Man myself, but I suppose I should count myself lucky that they like Lizzie, rather than that Montana person, as so many people seem to. But while they were listening, they discussed a certain topic that the radio spoke of earlier, which had something to do with the presidential candidates. This is a topic I'd much rather avoid, as I...

Friday, July 4 2008:

After yesterday's events, I'm not sure how my writing would look once I'm finished with this, but I need to have some record of this, so here it goes.

I was writing in my journal, when suddenly we hit something. I didn't see anything myself, but the couple claimed to have seen a man running in front of the car, perhaps thinking he could stop it. And in a sense it did. The two got out of the car, checking out the man they hit. Being as shocked as they were, I too got out of the car. I couldn't be sure, but the man we hit had something strange about his lips. They were strangely shaped, almost like a rabbit's, which caused his teeth to show themselves, even if the man's mouth was shut. This saw-toothed man, as the guy started to call him, remained motionless, as we were without any idea as to what to do. But then something hit the guy in the back. It was an axe, which came from somewhere else in the woods, where I saw a man with three fingers on one of his hands, and almost just as deformed as the other man, who then got up and attacked the guy. With one swift move he snapped the guy's neck. Panicking, I hurried myself back in the car. When I tried to start it, another guy started shooting arrows at me. At the time, I was in such a panic, I dropped the keys, so I had to duck down to get them, only just dodging the arrows. I started the car and drove off, only narrowly escaping the saw-toothed man's grip. The man with arrows (of whom I couldn't get a good look but I'd swear he had only one eye) shot another arrow, blowing up one of the tires. Also, the three-fingered man tried the axe, but there was just about enough baggage in this car, belonging to the couple, to stop the axe from hitting me.

After that, I kept driving, not stopping once. Only when I got out of the woods, somebody pointed out that I had a flat tire, which I needed to fix. Only then I stopped, only to collapse completely at first. The shoot-out in Miami was nothing, as the ones shooting didn't mean to hit anyone else but the guy they were following. Back then, I could rely on my own cynism to get over what happened then. But with these three mountain men, if you'd have seen their faces yourself, their beedy eyes and that look on their faces, looking at us as if we were some bug that must be squashed... now I know how every bug I ever killed must feel, every time they only just managed to escape their own deaths.

Once I've calmed down, I changed the tire, found the axe that was thrown in the car and drove on. I found my way into Maryland, though that too wasn't without any trouble. When I made it to the border between West-Virginia and Maryland, they stopped me. Then I remembered that I'm not actually driving my own car. When they find that out, they'll wonder how I got to the car, of which they'll find out that the owners are missing, so they'll wonder what happened to them. I could tell them the truth, but then they'll wonder why I didn't alert the authorities. My own guess, I was too panicked, how was I supposed to think this all through? Even at that moment, I didn't know what else to do, but to drive through the borders anyway, not caring about what they would or would not do. I've been in custody once before, so they've already got a picture of me. All I can hope is that none of these men saw my face. In any event, if by any means at all, they can't find me by this car, so I ditched it somewhere, then went the rest of the way on my own. I have no idea of where I am, but I know I'm too far away for these mountain men to find me. With any luck, the authorities do not find me, but just in case I registered myself under an alias in a cheap motel. Hopefully, that will be enough to distract anyone looking for me.


	7. Chapter 7

Saturday, July 5 2008:

Last night, I couldn't concentrate to read "Tracer Bullet", so I tried to clear my head by watching the TV. It had quite a few channels, like PoP TV, GNN, CNC, Faux, even the Australian CNNNN. Still, so many channels seemingly from all over the world, and still nothing to see. It helped me regain my cynicism, and therefor I felt my own usual self again. I'll just go and take a shower, try and find a place for breakfast, or even buy some food for on the way, then I'll be off to Washington D.C. Okay, maybe Washington isn't the place to be for someone who may or may not be running from the law, but still if you're a run-away, would you go to Washington? I'm sure the authorities would have come to that deduction themselves, so they won't be expecting me there.

Some miles away from the motel, a school-bus stopped by, transporting some group of soccer kids. Not particularly my idea of good transport, for so many reasons, but it's better than having to walk all the way to Washington. Unfortunately, they could only take me as far as Burkittsville, as they were headed in a different direction. But I thought if I could catch a ride like this, I'll probably do the same in Burkittsville.

So I'm on that bus, trying to bear all the noise these kids make, about how much fun they will or will not have at soccer-camp. I honestly never quite understood what's everybody's obsession is with soccer. What is it that makes it something to kill for? Litterally sometimes. I dared to say something like that to the driver, which one of the kids overheard, causing him to start ranting about how "cool" and "radical" and whatever other out-of-context word he could come up with, just to say how wrong I am to think there's nothing right about this sport. This kid was named Ben, which I felt to be funny as I happen to know a Ben myself back home, who's also the smartest person I've ever known, which is in contrast with this Ben kid here, who doesn't even know what he's saying or doing. In order to change the subject, I thought of complimenting him about that wrist-watch he wore. When I did, he panicked, covered it up with his sleeve and ran away. What is it about that watch that made him panic like that? Come to think of it, was it even a watch? I can't exactly remember reading the time on that thing, all I do remember is that it emitted some kind of green glow, but that's it.

In Burkittsville, I asked if there was any transport to Washington. Turns out there wasn't, and the nearest station of any type was in a neighbouring town. To get there, so they told me, I had to go through these woods, which I didn't mind taking. However, these people seemed to be against that idea, as they all seemed to think there's something in these woods. What, they couldn't agree upon, except that whoever dared to venture through these woods never returned. I didn't particularly take their word for it, though. My thoughts on this is as follows: I remember to have been told as a kid, that when you walk through the woods, never stray from the path. I never knew why, but hearing these people talk, I started to understand. Maybe these people they mentioned did stray from the path, so they got lost and died in the woods. In other words, if I just followed the concrete road, I won't get lost in the woods, and I'll come out alive. I'm pretty sure there's some stupid explanation about all these stories they tell me.

...Or so I thought. I've been walking through here for hours, but I haven't seen any car driving through. Also, it's summer, yet the leaves are falling from the trees. Now that I'm sitting down to write all this down, and thereby not hearing my own footsteps, I realize how quiet it is here. Not a bird singing, not an animal running through,... it's like there's something here that doesn't want there to be any life in these woods. If there's anything here, this goes beyond those men I met in West-Virginia. Well, whatever it is, back there those men had the advantage of hiding in the bushes, which is impossible here. There's no place for me to hide, but neither is there for... well, "it", if "it" is out there. Also, if I were to fall asleep here, I'd immediately be startled by a snapping twig, as there's nothing else that could cause it here. I'm pretty sure I can survive this.

Sunday, July 6 2008

Tonight was very weird. I'm not sure of how I should describe it, but I could swear that there was something that touched me. It felt like the many hands of kids. Yet, when I opened my eyes to take a look, there was nothing there, except for some tied together twigs, which seemed to form some kind of weird symbol. It got me to think that "it" must just be some kind of hermit prankster, scaring people, disorienting them,... well you know the rest. At least those mountain men had the guts to show themselves to me. If this prankster is reading this, let me tell you: You've gotta do better than that!

So right now, I've managed to find my way out of the woods, having arrived at the station that the town folks have mentioned and I'm on my way to Washington D.C.


	8. Chapter 8

I arrived in Washington D.C. sooner than I anticipated, but I didn't really care about it. I must say that the only thing that would make this city much interesting is the fact that this is the country's capital city, but nothing more. However, since this is the time of presidential elections, I should consider myself lucky to be here right now. You wouldn't believe what I saw there, even if I told you.

First off, I passed by the White House. Although it wasn't hit by an airplane a few years back, it did show some signs as if it has been rebuilt. Not so surprising, as I remember to have seen this image of a giant flying space-ship blowing it to smithereens, which happened some ten years ago. Then I wondered, who's in this House right now? I remember to have heard many names the past few years. Jackson, Kealty, Ashton, that woman who's name I keep forgetting, the Palmer brothers, Smith, Logan, Bartlet, Keeler,... this country has had so many presidents in the past decade alone, then it ever had in all the years previously. Should I really be surprised, though? There aren't too many people around the world who like the American idea of freedom, or don't like the idea of freedom altogether, not to mention that some people feel that the American government has a imperialistic agenda, which makes them competitors to other imperialistic governments (I mean, name one that doesn't want to control the whole world).

When I went around to ask people who's in the House right now, first they all laughed at me, but then they couldn't quite agree on the right answer. The one thought it was Ashton, but then the other said he was assassinated, while another said it's Palmer, who according to the one either resigned or was severely injured, or were they confusing the one Palmer for his younger brother? In other words, nobody in the States really knows it themselves.

So you'd say with the elections coming up, it should be easier to know who's the president. In my honest opinion, that would depend on whether this one won't be killed or otherwise tried to be assassinated. In any event, I don't believe that it matters much on who wins the elections, be it Democratic or Republican. Which reminds me, why is this distinction even made? I mean, a country wouldn't be a republic if it wasn't for democracy, nor would there be any democracy if the country wasn't a republic. So in a sense, it means the same, so why are there two separate groups? This was a question nobody could answer.

Next, there was protesters virtually everywhere in the city. As I understand it, these many people who protested were making their point clear about who should win the elections. Well, I'm not sure who this man is they think that should win, but their arguments for who shouldn't win sound very convincing. One of the candidates promised another prison for the people. This didn't sound so bad, until I heard what they had in mind for a prison. This particular candidate, whether it was that Theodore Bridges, who happens to be related to Roosevelt, or the other guy, I'm not sure, but what I do know is that he wants to turn L.A. into a prison, much like what's been done with Manhattan Island a few years back. This particular candidate suggested that the man who was president at the time, temporarily filling in for another, was weak. His security measures were poor, which is why nobody was surprised that his plane crashed in Manhattan. After he was saved, he immediately turned the island back into a normal city. Now, with L.A. having turned into an island, this particular candidate wants it to become the new New York Prison, or rather L.A. Prison. According to some protesters, L.A. only became an island because of a weapon that was made a few years back, the same weapon that caused the Earth's core to stop spinning. To top it all off, this same candidate, when elected, will, and I quote, not being able to stress his sarcasm enough: "make it his duty to take a life-long term."

I know, politics stinks. It's one of these times that makes me happy to not be American. My own country isn't bad enough, what with it having become a republic recently. But the one that's been appointed as our president is a lot dumber than the king and his family altogether. And that royal family was already much dumber than some people credit animals to be. In other words, It's bad enough to have to live with my own political situation, let alone the American one.

Oh, and did I mention that the coming of the press, particularly Faux news, didn't make things any better? This channel claimed to be bringing the truth to the people, but judging from what I heard this female reporter state, she sounded very biased about the presidential candidates. She even picked sides, specifically the one I just described. I thought journalists were supposed to be impartial, but this one didn't even seem to listen to the people, she even went as far as calling them names. This channel sure earned it's name "Faux", as it's French for "wrong". Wonder what got them to name their channel that. Luckily some blue guy with a black mask wearing red underwear (I'm not kidding) tried to restore the peace. Only an idiot would try it the way he did, because what he did merely made things get out of hand, as people had suddenly started to beat the crap out of each other. This included some religious protesters, and that Faux reporter and crew. Seeing this, I couldn't help myself to think that that's a whole bunch of voters, blackmailers and religious freaks less. I've got to hand it to this blue guy, Freaknoid or something that he called himself, if he's able to do that, he may be an idiot but he's much smarter than that pink-suited bimbo back home.

As I'm writing all this, waiting in the train-station to catch my train to New Jersey, I can't help myself thinking of the following: those religious protesters I mentioned, they demanded, and again I quote, which would sound sarcastic if I said it out loud: "to return America to God". That's not to mention that on every dollar bill I've seen so far, there's "in god we trust" written on it. If they love their god so much, why don't they elect him to be their next president? Because that's impossible, I know that, but imagine that, this God-person were to rule America. A god, who loves us all, yet is ready to kill us all whenever he so pleases. This would mean that many more people will suffer more gravely than they already are, and this world will become a dystopia.

Monday, July 7 2008, past midnight:

Okay, this I have to mention. Just as soon as I was about to board the train, a man was being carried out, screaming his head off, claiming that the train will crash. Because he was shouting all that, they had to carry him, and his friends out. I don't know what it is that made him shout all that, maybe he saw something which technicians overlooked, out of which he knew that something will happen. That, or he was just a troublemaker. In any event, I didn't want to take my chances, so I didn't get on the train. Turns out I was right not to board it, as shortly after that, it derailed.

This does make me thinking. I mean, in Florida I bad-mouthed God, and I was nearly struck by lightning. I did it again here and the train I was supposed to be on crashed. Some gullible people would think this is God, punishing me for speaking ill of the Almighty All-loving God. If he loved me so much, he wouldn't try to kill me so many times. Besides, even if he would, he only just proved my point. This god should not be allowed to rule the world, let alone America, as so many people want him to. If God would kill people just because they disrespect him, then to hell with God!


	9. Chapter 9

With the tracks needing some clean-up, to put it lightly, I've had to wait for a few hours before I could depart from Washington D.C., so I walked around for a bit. Since I've already seen the city, there wasn't any other place for me to go to, so I stuck around the train-station. I stayed, I walked, took some food from the vending machines, which may seem unhealthy but since I'm always on the move I don't think this'll be much of a real problem. So I stuck around, looked around... until I had the impression I was being watched.

The first time I looked around, I didn't see anyone looking at me. I shrugged, so I walked a little further. Call me paranoid, but the feeling just wouldn't go away. When I looked again, I noticed what was wrong. There were four people, one at my North, another at my East, at my South, and West. Okay, that's not entirely accurate, I'm just trying to point out that they were spread apart. These particular four, they consisted out of one big guy, one blond guy, a much younger guy, I'd say about my age, and a redhead woman. On it's own, this doesn't mean much, accept that all four of them were pale, wore some kind on microphone on their head, and though their clothes weren't the same, they all seemed to have black as the dominant color as well as leather as it's dominant fabric. Spotting one of these wouldn't mean anything, two of them could but likely not, but three of them is already too much, let alone four. If they were together, one could say they're just a band of gothics, but spread out like this?

I tried to run away from them, but they appeared to keep following me. Until I turned into a small alley, where I lost them. At least I thought so, until they had me surrounded. The big guy I described, mentioned my name, and started to mention what I'm being accused of. So these four gothics are officials? It's new to me that a goth person would become a cop, or that a cop would even disguise as one. Anyway, my charges were as follows: defying authority (name one person who hasn't), not paying the doctor for medical care (the only time I could think of that I needed any was in Miami, plus I was a victim in a shoot-out, so can they really charge me for that?) kidnapping/possible homicide (which meant they know about that couple in West-Virginia) and grand theft auto. The latter one was what really got me cooked. Why they'd blame me for the disappearance of that couple, I more or less understand, as well as why they'd accuse me of theft. But grand theft? That's an exageration. I told these guys exactly that, when suddenly the blond guy started to show his teeth, of which his fangs were very sharp. What does this guy think he is? A vampire? Being my usual cynical self, I did what every priest would do when he thinks he sees a demon: I made a cross in the air. Strangely, that actually worked, as a cross-shaped fire started on the blond guy's torso. Shortly after that, the other three started to fly at me, literally. I ducked down, only just managing to dodge their attack, after which I tried to look for two sticks (but found pipes instead) which I then held up as a cross, so to keep them at a distance. This actually worked as well. These guys really are vampires.

Not too long after that, a family arrived at the scene. A man, with his woman (married or not, I have no way of knowing), and their kids. The father of the family wondered what was going on. The big guy tried to convince the family to stay out of this, but the father somehow knew that I was in trouble, so he nor his family backed off. This angered the youngest member of the group, who then attacked the father. But the latter still didn't budge. At a point, he even said "We just had some chocolate, now we're thirsty for blood". After that, the whole family... changed. They changed into what looked like wolves, except for longer legs and larger ears. In that form, they attacked these vampires. Taking advantage of the situation, I got myself out of there.

I've waited for some time for that train, but was relieved when it arrived. Finally, not only am I on my way to New Jersey, I could finally sit down and rest. The train is on it's way to Philadelphia, but since I have no business there, I'll just get off and take another to New York.

I arrived in Philadelphia just when the sun rose into the skies. There was, however, no train that would take me to New York directly. I tried to figure out how else I may get there, but couldn't find anything. So again, I had to rely on hitch-hiking my way there. So I went through town, moving myself out so I could find a ride more easily. However, while walking, I met with this guy, a student by the looks of it. He introduced himself as Cole, and said that he had a message for me. He told me to be careful with what I write, because if I don't I would awaken a fury. When I asked him what he knew about what I write, he said it's not important. What he did tell me is that I should have died on that train, but I didn't, so I'll die some other way, soon. While he spoke, he appeared as though I wasn't the only one he was talking to, as he also spoke to someone else, who I couldn't see. Though he may know some things about me that he couldn't possibly know, he doesn't exactly do anything to give me any credibility. If this guy really is a psychic of some kind, which I don't think impossible anymore, it looks to me that he's seen too many things, which have driven him to insanity. I have no reason to take his words seriously, so I don't.


	10. Chapter 10

Once outside of Philadelphia, I hitched a ride that could only bring me as far as a place called Crystal Lake. Never heard of the place, but according to the driver there's a camp site there. I didn't really care about what the place was, still don't, but it's supposed to be located near Jersey City, another major city, therefor I'm certain to find another ride that would bring me to New York, or at least out of New Jersey.

Something funny: when I took my journal out of my bag, the driver wondered if it's my autograph book, and told me not to be afraid to ask him for his. And why would I ask him for his autograph? Turns out this guy is some famous martial artist around here in the States. He said his name was Jason Lee Scott, thinking it could help me, but I never heard of him, I therefor don't know him, so I wasn't at all interested in his autograph. When I told him exactly that, he insisted to give it to me. I have no idea what's gotten into this guy.

Unfortunately, it didn't end there. So first he was being obstinate, but later he couldn't stop raving on about his life in... some place in California. He kept talking about how he once fought on the wrong side of justice, or to use his own words, fought for evil, and had no control over himself whatsoever. Sounds a little weird, but what's weirder is that he said he still feels sorry for ever having done that, though judging from the look on his face, and the tone he used, he didn't seem sorry about all that at all. But anyway, he said he was lucky to have had friends who defeated him, and thereby turned him good again. Upon asking him what that means, he reminded me that he was turned evil once and therefor his friends turned him back. Now how does one just turn evil? It's not like you can switch your personality from the one to the other, from good to bad. He had no understanding of what that meant, which made him wish some other friend of his were here, some Asian girl judging from what her name sounded. Exactly how dumb is this guy?

Okay, I'll retract that statement. You can switch from one personality to another. Or at least this guy can. At some point during our ride, I was getting a little hungry, so I thought we should stop to eat something. Perhaps, just to be quick, we could stop by this Burger King joint to eat, but the driver said that was a bad idea, as I should treat my body as if it's a temple. Words that sound wise, but were contradicted the moment we stopped at a place called Fuddruckers, another fast-food joint, of which I have never heard of until now. In my opinion, with it's weird name and with the human race dumbed down as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if a point will come that this joint is called Buttfuckers. But I digress. My point is that earlier this guy didn't want to eat any fast-food, but now he doesn't think twice about it? I thought he may be a bit schizophrenic, but this other version of the guy still said his name was Jason. This goes beyond the mundane mood-swings.

This is something interesting that I came across. When we arrived in Crystal Lake, I got out. But when the driver asked some of the locals for directions to a place called Camp Crystal Lake, the mere mention of that name made the locals look up frightened. They didn't even want to give any directions at first. The driver begged, then demanded, then prayed,... Anyway, although it was none of my business, I wondered what's so terrible about Camp Crystal Lake. They told me that a woman once killed all the counsellors there, avenging the death of her son, who just so happened to be named Jason as well, Voorhees, that is. This woman managed to kill all but one counsellor, who chopped off her head in the struggle. Though with her dead, the murders didn't end there. Some believe that Jason actually came back from the dead to avenge his now dead mother. Interesting, as every town has it's own legend about something being out in the woods. I thought I should check that out, so I went along with Jason. Lee Scott, that Jason. Maybe it's best if I keep referring to them both by their last names. Anyway, since Scott couldn't convince them to give any directions, no matter what any of his many personalities said or did, I decided to tell these locals about something I don't understand. So they believe in a man who resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, I asked and they answered positive. And how could he resurrect? Because he was the son of God? Fine by me, but couldn't the same apply to Voorhees as well? After all they do believe he resurrected too, so he may as well be the son of God too. That statement made them hesitate no longer to give directions to the camp-site. Scott, of course, followed these directions.

Once we arrived, night was already closing in. Though I was told we were going to a place called Crystal Lake, that didn't necessarily mean there actually was a lake. Seeing it, I thought I should take a dive, as it's been so long since I last swam. It's one of the few things I really enjoy doing, so why should I not take my chance? Scott, on the other hand, thought of training a little. When he told me, he suddenly sounded more serious than he ever did before. To use his own exact words, he thought that Voorhees was a evil monster that had to be destroyed. He already figured this guy actually exists? And just as quickly decided that he's a monster? From what I gather, assuming Voorhees is real, he's just a kid that's angry because his mother died. But to Scott, that's no reason to become, and I quote: "an evil monster"

No matter what personality he has, every form of his seemed to think that monsters exist. Surely, I've met with monsters before, but it looked to me that they all had some kind of moral code, or else I would be dead by now. No matter what they look like, what they can or can't do, these monsters were still human in some shape or other. Anyway, I thought I should write all this down before taking a dive, or before it slips my mind.

Tuesday, July 8 2008:

I have no idea how the following will sound to you, all I can say you can either believe this or not. I was, like I said, diving in the lake. Trying to break an old record of mine to stay under the water for twenty-four seconds, I tried to stay under for a while. But when I resurfaced, I saw Scott, facing a big guy who wore a hockey mask, and wielded a long knife in his one hand. Scott, upon seeing the guy, swung his right hand behind his back. At first I thought he was challanging this guy to fight him with only one hand, but then he did... something weird. I don't know what was supposed to happen, but it looked to me as though he expected something to be thrown in his hands. I'm not sure, but that's when he looked really frightened. The big guy raised his knife, with which he stabbed Scott in his gut. After that, he took it out again, while I tried my best not to make even the slightest sound, or to not be seen. That's when Scott tried to punch the guy, who in his defense chopped off Scott's arm, who then fell down in agony. I know I should do something, but what could I do? What can someone of my size do against a man that big? Especially since a trained martial artist can't even deal with him. Trying to think of what to do, Scott crawled away, but the masked guy chopped of his legs. In doing so, he had finally seen me. I turned around, trying to swim away.

I thought of taking my stuff with me, but that would only slow me down, so I decided not to do that. So Jason Voorhees is real after all. But then something else came to me. As I understand it, Voorhees merely killed peopel out of revenge for his killed mother. I think her death is already avenged, so why does he keep killing? Thinking that, it slowed me down enough, so the big guy could catch up with me. He had me in his grip and was about to use his knife on me. Suddenly, I found the courage to say: "Jason?". At the sound of that name, he stopped moving. People have spoken of him as a child, and yet here I see him all grown up. This must mean he's still a child in his mind, so I figured, so maybe if I could speak to that child he may let me live. Anyone else would have screamed their heads off by now, but anyone else never faced those mountain men or vampires and werewolves I faced before. I tried to talk to him, I told him I understand his rage for the death of his mother. I wouldn't be that sad over the death of my own mother, but his mother must have cared for him in ways mine never did. So when somebody took that away from him, how must that not feel for him? How would you react if someone you cared for was taken away from you. In case of Jason, so I guessed, he just wants to be left alone. When I asked him whether I was correct, he merely let go of me and lowered his knife. So I reached that child he once was. With this, I felt I could tell him that all I needed was to get my stuff back together and then I'll leave and never come back. And if I do, he has every right to kill me. I even suggested him to escort me out of the woods, if he doesn't believe me.

So he did. I was out of the woods, where there was an old railroad track. On it, an old cargo-train was moving. Much like I've seen dozens of times in fiction, I noticed this train moved slow enough for me to get aboard. And now it has stopped in Jersey City.

Must say, I have heard of New Jersey before, though I never knew there actually was a city called Jersey here as well. Still, I haven't been here that long, but I still feel it's safe to say that this city wasn't exactly what I expected it would look like. The whole city appeared in ruins, torn down from some kind of battle that took place only recently. There even was this one ruined building where there was a sign which read "Conveniently empty factory". But the strangest part is that the people around here appeared okay with the state of their city. Here in the States, you sure meet the weirdos.

Before I forget, I should remind myself to get something to keep my journal waterproof. When being chased by Jason Voorhees, and I tried to pick up my stuff, I nearly, accidentally dropped my journal in the lake. If it happened to my clothes, it wouldn't have mattered as they can dry, or in the worst case they could be replaced, but my journal isn't. Here in Jersey, I obviously won't find anything, but hopefully I will in New York.


	11. Chapter 11

So finally I found a ride that would take me to New York City directly, but I must say that if you thought that martial artist from the other day was a little weird, then try the ones whom I'm riding with now.

In total, there are three of them. One is a musician by the looks of it, as he carries a guitar with him. The other two, judging from their current subject of argument, are a couple of retro-gamers. And although they were one guy and one girl, I doubt these two are an actual couple, though they might as well be as they appear as polar opposites to each other. The guy seems to be permanently angree and keeps pointing out all the things that makes this one particular game so terrible. The girl remained nice, no matter what the guy kept saying, and she loves everything about the game that makes the other hate it so much. As for the musician I mentioned, right now he's... hiding, behind the shotgun seat, where the guy retro-gamer is sitting. Why he's sitting there, or why he doesn't ever talk, I don't know, and when I wanted to ask him, he put his finger on his mouth, shushing me. Funny to note here as the retro-gamers never refer to each other by their first names. She keeps calling him "Nerd" while he keeps calling her "Little Missy". It is possible that "Missy" is her real name, or he's really calling her "Miss Z" (as that's a common pet-name for Elizabeth or Lindsey), and added "Little" as she's smaller than he is. I wouldn't know as I haven't seen them stand next to each other.

They just asked me how I felt about the game we were discussing, but since I don't know the game, it kind of makes it hard for me to form any opinion whatsoever. The guy, or to make it easier: the Nerd, he could not understand. He kept ranting about how it's impossible that I've never heard of that game, while "Missy" (as I'd best call her from here on in) tried to calm him down, as he should save his anger for... some critic or other. Luckily, he got a phone-call, which got him to stop. Judging from what I heard from that call, the Nerd is to fight some guy in some kind of arena in N.Y.C., that guy being this Critic that Missy mentioned. When he was done talking, to some guy named Gomez if I understood him right, the Nerd asked if I'd wanna be in the arena to see him kick the Critic's... he could've just used "butt", but instead he decided to talk about his grandmother's tits, a buffalo's anus and... or was it a buffalo's tits? Anyway, he couldn't just use the one word, but had to use an entire series of them. I only agreed so he'd stop talking. That's when Missy said that with the Nerd being a contestant, he'll have no trouble at all to help me get in.

Now, I'm at that arena, which was for some show called "Celebrity Deathmatch", and honestly I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to come here. It started with two boxing guys, one was called Balboa, I believe, the other was a Crets, a boxing champ from my own home-country. Not that I'm much of a boxing fan, I only knew this as the commentators mentioned his country of origin. The winner was... undecided, as both of them died in the process. Next came this other fight, in which some (apparently) famed martial artist was to fight... the martial artist who's murdered in Crystal Lake. In the end, one of the commentators fought this artist. The artist lost, strange as that may sound. Now their so-called "Main Event" has started, in which the aforementioned Nerd is to fight this Critic. It started funny, as the Critic began with stating: "You wouldn't punch a guy who wears glasses?". At which the Nerd reminded him that they both wore glasses. I thought this would be a fight in which they'd talk each other to death, but when the Nerd started to throw pens at the Critic, the latter got angry, and that was when the fight really began. Strangely, however, there doesn't seem to be anybody who'd want to do something about this, especially not when the one severed the other's leg or arm. Even that Missy girl, who was there with some more friends of hers, a colorful bunch, I must add, neither one of them seemed to want to do anything. Is there really no way to stop this?

Okay, so now the fight is over, but I guess you want to know how it ended. When I wrote down that question, a guy with glasses who sat next to me answered it, although it was rhetorical. He answered that all I have to do is somehow take down those two commentators up in their stands. I tried, but I failed. But then a bum passed by who knew just what to do to help, and all he wanted was some change. So I gave him some change, and he used a chainsaw, wherever he got that from, to tear down that stand, thereby ending this match, and the show.

When I was ready to leave, both the Nerd and the Critic thanked me, for they're both still alive thanks to me. It will take a while before their reattached limbs will function properly again, but they didn't seem to care. They even wanted to know my e-mail address so we could keep in contact. So I gave it to them, they gave me theirs, as well as that Missy and her friends. Strangely, however, although the Nerd and the Critic consider themselves as my friends, they still don't consider themselves to be each other's friends. No matter, I have no idea whether I could fully trust either one of this bunch, so I didn't give them my real address.

I had to find a place to sleep, so I found some friendly people who'd let me stay in their house for the night, for free. Still, I'm not so sure this was such a good idea. If people want you to stay for free, there's always a catch. In this case, I had to stay with this bleu... thing, whom they called Cookie Junior. This would've been nothing on it's own, if this "thing" wasn't something that would eat just about anything, even if it's not eatable. He nearly even ate my journal, or that metalic thing I got from England. I don't think I'll have much, if any sleep tonight, knowing that I might wake up missing something.


	12. Chapter 12

Wednesday, July 9 2008:

After hours of walking all through Manhattan Island, I decided to sit down in a nearby coffee-shop. I hate coffee, I can hardly even bear the scent of it, but I really needed to sit down and rest, and try and write down what I saw thus far. The shop in question is called "Central Perk", a play on "Central Park" and the verb "to perk", so in essence it's supposed to be the centre of happiness. Happiness and coffee? That's quite contradictory. But I suppose I should add this to the list of this islands many oddities. I'm not sure I can remember them all right now, but I'll try.

So first I left that house I spent the night at. I was quite happy to leave that street with all those... things, I don't what they were. I already told you about that thing that would eat anything, but I haven't mentioned this very big bird, big enough to fit in the wheel-chair, a pink vampire-looking thing that has a fetish for counting, some red thing that keeps talking about itself in third person,... Yep, even the street where I reside looks normal in comparison.

Anyway, from here on I hitched a ride that would take me directly upon Manhattan Island. Ever been told that if you turn into the wrong streets in Manhattan, you would end up in trouble? I must say that there's always something that would help you out of it. For instance, this one alley I ran into, hoping to make a short-cut to get to the Empire State Building, I was about to be mugged by some nuns. You don't believe me? They asked me if I could help them save money for their church, but with the trip I'm on I'd best spare every dime I've got. They couldn't accept that, so with the excuse of doing God's work, they were about to use their Jesus-statues to beat me (really, one nun may be easy to handle, but a whole bunch?). I was lucky for that... well, I don't know what it was, but I was helped by something that I could only describe as chains, which had something that looked like claws on them, coming out of holes from a wall behind me. From those holes, I'm not sure, but I could swear I saw something red moving there. Letting that thing do what it's doing, I decided to get out and leave them be. Whoever said that nuns are friendly is gravely mistaken, but to me that wasn't exactly unexpected, as we all know, religion can drive people to do the most horrible things.

The Empire State Building in question was nothing to be excited about, I can tell you that. Inside it was quite dull, and the view on top wasn't something I've never seen before. Although, it did give me a good look at what's now designated as Ground Zero. Which reminded me, why would they rebuilt everything after an extra-terrestrial attack, or some rock coming from outer space, and yet clean it away when it was a terrorist attack? When asked, somebody said that something like an alien attack is something to remind the people that WE will not back down from anything from outer space. In case of a terrorist attack, it is important for the people to understand that there are too many problems on our own planet for us to be worried about anything else, that might or might not come again. I'm not sure I understand completely, but I suppose I should just take his word for it.

Once back on the ground level, I found a newspaper stand, where I saw the most bizarre papers and or magazines. One of them was called "Blush". I understand why it'd be called that, as when a man is to look at the picture of the model on the front cover, he'd immediately blush. It would've worked well for a male-magazine, except that it's targeting females. Oh well, I was lucky I wasn't standing next to a employee who works for that magazine. I'm only saying that, because I was standing next to someone who worked for the "Daily Bugle" (a local newspaper), although he looked like he was past his sixties, in other words he looked a little too old for that. He claimed to have taken the picture that's on today's paper. I looked at that paper. It was a picture of a man flying, while carrying another. A picture, of which it was taken from a very peculiar angle, I might add. It looked as though the camera that shot this was hanging somewhere between two buildings. He said he was on a flag-pole when he did that. Not quite the believable explanation, but I assumed he just didn't want to tell me his secret. The headline of the paper read that they, the reporters from that paper may have found out who it is. As I read the article in question, I read that some time after a flash appeared over the city, this man was seen flying, and a veteran photographer, that being the man I mentioned, managed to snapshot it. The rest of the article was an interview with the young girl, about my age I estimate, who thinks she knows the flying man. I must say that the girl in question, who's picture was shown, had marvelous blue eyes, I wouldn't even think of forgetting her name: Rory. Unfortunately, I also remembered the name of the flying man, but then, the guy has a name which I thought was a girl's name, which I found to be so funny, I remembered it: Jesse.

At another point, I accidentally fell through a manhole, where I was immediately surrounded by crocodiles. Or alligators, as I can't tell those things apart. Again, I was rescued by... something of which I'm not sure what it was, or rather what they were. They looked like turtles, walking and talking like humans would, each wielding ninja-like weapons, and wearing red bandanna masks. One of them, who wielded some kind of stick, decided to help me get away. He ran with me through the sewers, making sure we're far enough from these crocodiles. When we were, in that one turtle's opinion, far enough from them, he helped me get back to the surface. Although I've been in the sewers, I didn't seem to bear any bad smell. I mean, I didn't smell anything, nor did anyone else, so it seemed. Perhaps I should also mention that he helped me re-surface at a building that looked like an old fire-house, although it bore something that looked like one of those no-smoking signs, where the cigarette on the sign is replaced by a ghost. At the time, I thought I've seen everything.

How wrong I was. Some distance away from there, I passed by a comic book store. Maybe not the best choice for a tourist to be, but then again, the chances of you being robbed are much bigger at a tourist attraction than anywhere else. Besides, the fact that it had a wide variety of comics (most of which I've never even heard of) made it all worthwhile. Other than the comics I already knew, like "Stupendous Man", "Captain Baseball-Bat Boy", "Radioactive Man", "Crimson Chin",... there was also one called "9th Wonders", which was the one that really caught my interest. It tells stories about people going through the strangest things in their lives. But there were only two that really stuck out to me. One spoke of a group of genetically altered people, who escaped from the facility in which they were created, hoping that the outside world is better, only to see how terrible it is, when bombs exploded, wiping out most of America's major cities, as well as other bombs were exploded in the skies, causing an EM-pulse, which shut down all electricity. But it was the other one that made me realize how little I've really seen of "everything". This one spoke of a giant monster, of which I'm not sure how I should best describe it. It carried some kind of huge bugs on it, who would cause people to explode only by biting them. I remembered that there has been a giant gorilla on this island before back in the 30s, as well as a giant lizard in the late 90s. Remembering that, I'd wish to see a giant monster myself. Unfortunately, what are the odds of me seeing one here in N.Y.C.? Surely, similar events took place in other parts of the US as well, like the time that robots transforming into cars appeared out of nowhere, some time before I was born, giant humanoid people who'd fight giant monsters,... need I go on? But those things only happened on very rare occasions. If I really want to see giant monsters, I should go to Japan, where giant monsters (or monsters in general) appear virtually every day. I'd love to, but despite "The Seventh Man" his best efforts, the relationship between the Republic of Greater East Asia and the western world are still a little tense. Even if there were no monsters in Japan, it would still be too dangerous for me to be there. Thinking about this, it reminded me of the time that monsters started to appear in Paris, around the turn of the century. I remember to have spend a week in Paris around that period, and yet I saw nothing. Can you believe how frustrating that is? Some time ago, the same thing started to happen in England as well, and though I have spend some time in England, about a week ago as well as a few years back, I didn't see anything there. I suppose I'll have to accept that I may never see a giant monster.

Interesting to note here, is that there was a couple in the comic-store. But from the couple, only the guy appeared to be the one into comics. Although I usually don't listen in on people's private conversations, it was kinda hard not to when the female, a chubby redhead, kept shouting at her boyfriend, who appeared smaller in width compared to her. Okay, she wasn't that big, but if I were to tell which one of the two was phisically stronger, I'd go with the girl. At some point, the guy suggested that the girl should try to get to know the comics, but she thought she wouldn't be attractive to guys then. Before the guy even asked her, I already wondered why she would need that, as she's already with someone. She was a real weirdo. Wonder what that guy sees in her. Judging from their names, which were mentioned in their conversations, I'd say the guy looks more like a lily and the girl looks more like a brat to me, rather than the other way around.

Now I'd better let my hand rest from all the writing.

I've only just visited Liberty Island, and I'm on the ferry taking me back to Manhattan. The statue in question already appeared big on the photos, but was huge in reality. Inside it, there wasn't much to say, except that I sometimes saw traces of dried slime, as well as something that would indicate some kind of secret passageway through the statue's face. Outside, I found an old plague that read "Liberty Island Security Control". This is only one of the many remnants of the time that Manhattan Island was a prison. By the way, the prison's guards were stationed on Liberty Island? How's that for irony!? Come to think of it, from the statue's head, I could see many remains of walls, on the lands surrounding Manhattan Island, and on those lands there's still some graffiti left that read things like "Bring back New York" or anything in that nature. Though NYC isn't a prison anymore, there are still too many souvenirs from the time that it was. It's like the Great Wall in Berlin. Although torn down, there are still signs left to indicate it was there, or as some would put it: "It's like the Wall is still there."

On Liberty Island, I found a pamphlet, that spoke of some kind of exposition taking place all through the States, where you can see some gadgets that will be used in the near future. Every day of the summer, it'll be somewhere else. I could wait for it to arrive here in New York, but that would take a few days, which I'd better not waste. So instead, if my calculations are correct, it would be best if I go to Bangor, Maine, to visit the exposition.

Past Manhattan Island, there's something known as Long Island. Heard so much about it, but I wonder what's so special about it. I guess it may be best that when I go to Maine, I'd best go through Long Island to get there.


	13. Chapter 13

Now that I've arrived in a place called Amityville, in an old house that appeared uninhabited to me, I suppose I could write down what else I've seen.

So when I returned to Manhattan Island, I happened to have come across some kind of magazine, which gave away more details about that exposition I mentioned. Normally I wouldn't look into such things, as I'd rather be surprised, but I needed to know if it would be worth my while, so I flipped through it. Among other things, it spoke of automatic shoe-laces, a remote-control device (of which I still haven't read the specifics, nor did I see the wonder of that, but if it's especially mentioned, there has to be something special about it), more advanced holographic projections, even a prototype of a flying car. To see this with my own eyes, I'm pretty sure this'll make it worth my while.

After that, I finally found something that would keep my journal waterproof. Not the most conventional thing, if that even exists, or the most efficient, it's just some kind of plastic bag that could be sealed airtightly. It's usually used to preserve food, but it will work fine, I'm sure. The only problem is that I'll have to take it in or out of the bag every time I use it.

When I left that store, I saw a movie theatre, where they were playing "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor". So they finally turned Evelyn O'Connol's third book into a movie too. Which reminded me, I've nearly finished my "Tracer Bullet" novel, so I'll have to find another book to read. But then, if I were to buy another one, I hardly have any space left for anything else. So I decided to send the "Tracer Bullet" back home by post, so I can buy myself another one here. Maybe I should buy the first "Mummy" novel, or one of Bill Denbrough's novels. I'll see when I finished my first novel.

About my ride off the island, I'd rather not talk about it, but then... I have already written down all other oddities, so what's one more or less? The ride I hitched had a blond, curly haired woman behind the steering wheel, who appeared at least twice as old as I am. Unfortunately, my foreign accent was something that had her attracted to me. Once we were over the bridge and on Long Island, I told her to stop the car. She nearly begged me not to leave, to a point I had to demand her to let me go. She now probably wouldn't be so nice to other people from my country, but who am I to care?

So after another long walk, I finally reached Amityville, where I found the abandoned house I mentioned. I must say that this house is a little weird. For one, I feel cold some times, despite the summer weather. I also smelled some kind of perfume, as though somebody else was here, or someone is still here. But when I checked, I saw no one. I don't know what's going on here, if anything at all. Then again, it was a long day, so my being tired has me seeing things that aren't there, or even rendered me too tired to think rationally. The sun has already disappeared behind the horizon, leaving only some of it's lights to be visible. After everything that happened so far, I guess I should sleep now.

Thursday, July 10th 2008:

It's four in the morning, but I don't particularly feel like sleeping right now. My only hope is that I won't wake up my sleeping mate. Now you're probably wondering when I got a sleeping mate.

While I was sleeping in that house in Amityville, I woke up from a loud bang, which seemed to be caused by the front door. Not too long after that, I heard a car driving away. It was a few minutes past midnight when that happened. It didn't take long before I realized there was something causing some kind of knocking. At first I thought it was some bird running on the roof, or rats in the walls, but then I noticed the knocking kept going on. I wasn't sure of what was going on, but if I were to sleep at all, I'd better check it out.

It took me a while, but I soon realized the knocking came from the attic. When I reached it, I found a girl, who didn't appear much older than me, gagged and tied to an old chair. I couldn't be too sure, but she looked familiar. Once I recognized her as that reporter from Faux News, whom I had seen in Washington D.C., I couldn't blame the one putting her here for having done so. In fact, I kind of enjoyed seeing her like this. But she kept mumbling something through her gag. I suppose, unlike her, I should show her some kind of mercy. So I took off the gag, allowing her to talk. From what we talked about, it turns out she wasn't who I thought she was, she was just someone who looked like the reporter I mentioned. This girl was called Jessica. She told me that she was kidnapped by an angry mob, and brought to this house to waste away. The mob in question was, as she told me, only angry because she dared to tell people that God himself spoke to her through her printer. She was, as she said, an atheist, much like myself, who was just convinced of the existence of God when her printer started printing replies to questions she asked, while she didn't do anything to make the machine print. This gives "Deus Ex Machina" a new meaning. I don't know if this (I guess I could call her that) angry little girl was crazy or not, but as she sounded, she now believed in a god, who makes it his hobby to pull practical jokes. That was something I couldn't disagree about. I mean, if you look at all of the world's greatest religions, Jewry, Christianity, Islam,... They must be personal jokes by God himself. I suppose, since we have the same idea about religion, she couldn't possibly be that biased Faux reporter, so I helped her to get free.

When we left the house, she was still angered by what that mob did to her. A point came that she decided to go a place called Arkham, which is in Massachusettes. Why, I couldn't quite understand. She told me there's this... book, there, of which I can't remember it's name. She didn't believe in it's existence at first, but now that she knows that God exists, who knows what else exists. While she was at it, I asked her if she could drop me off there as well, so I could continue my journey. She decided she did owe me something, so she agreed to it. With the help of a friendly person living nearby, she got to call one of her friends, who helped her return home, where I am as well now, staying for the night.

Upon asking her why she was brought to that house in Amityville, she answered that the mob believed the house to be possessed by the devil. To them, it was the perfect place for someone like her to waste away. Now why am I not surprised? When something big like the tsunami in Miami and South-East Asia happens, God is blamed, but when it's something as small and/or stupid as a house, or a person, seemingly possessed, it's the work of the devil? Who's supposed to be the ultimate evil? Where's the sense in that? To me it's obvious who's the real evil.

I was using a small nightlight to write all this down, but then the electricity short-circuited, so I have to use my lighter to see what I'm writing. When an incident in Miami happens shortly after trash-mouthing God, that can be coincidence. When another such thing happens in Washinton D.C., that can happen. But just one more thing, in this case being the electricity short-circuiting, though not lethal, but still something happens after calling God a bad guy. Now this can't be coincidence anymore. Unfortunately for God, everything he does to me to have me convert, are all reasons to thwart him rather than worship him. When Jessica wakes up, I'm sure I'll have a nice topic of conversation with her.


	14. Chapter 14

Almost immediately after finishing what I wrote, Jessica seemed to be have trouble breathing. I don't know how or why, all I do know is that she suddenly started to cough, or something to that effect. Although I have had some kind of CPR training in elementary school, that was only meant to help those who do not breath at all. With the electricity out, the phones didn't operate as well. This was strange, as I was under the impression that phone-lines and electricity weren't at all connected to each other. I could try a cell-phone, but I didn't have mine, nor did I know where to find hers. It didn't take long before she stopped breathing. Fortunately, that was the time that I could help her at all. I did exactly what I've been told so long ago: breath into her mouth and give her a heart resuscitation. The latter one wasn't easy, as I could only use my lighter to see where I should put my hands to do this. I don't know how much time passed, but in the end I did succeed in getting her to breath again. If you want to know what happened... I don't know. Right now, I'm at the hospital, waiting for her to be checked out. Still, the short-circuiting of her electricity, the dead phones, then her sudden loss of breath... This can't be just a coincidence altogether, can it? Given a thing or two, about what I think, or what both Jess and me think (yes, she wants me to call her Jess), or what has happened to me before, I don't think this is.

The doctor just spoke to me, and told me he couldn't find anything that got her to react the way she did. That is, he did know that her lungs for some reason ceased to opperate, almost like that of an asthma-patient might. I don't know if she is one, but judging from what I described, the doctor thought that the reaction is only similar, but not the same. An asthma-patient, he/she would still breath for some time before he/she died, but here it sounded more like someone just switched her lungs off, like you switch off the lights. Hearing him say this, it only made me more angry, as I have a pretty good idea who may have done this switching. Okay, I'm not gonna point any fingers here, but as I see it, there are two possibilities. One, given that "the almighty" has already tried to kill me, twice, but to no effect, he may have decided to kill someone, at this moment, closest to me. At the same time, this one is someone whom he probably detests just as much as me (or as some would put it "loves too much to have in existance"), so the proverbal two birds are caught with one stone. Two, given what I've seen so far (vampires, werewolves, zombies, things appearing out of nowhere, ninja-fighting turtles), and since Jess isn't the most loved person in the world, somebody may have done something that would cause her death. Why not? People have already tried yesterday. This is something I should discuss with Jess, the minute the doctors let me see her.

So after I talked to her about what I think, she decided that this is all the more reason for her to go to Arkham. The only problem at the time was that the doctors wanted to keep her there, for observation. But, given the state of emergency, I didn't call an ambulance to get there, nor did I know if she had a car of her own to get anywhere (an realization that shouldn't have occurred to me, since I knew she was planning to drive to Massachusetts), so I had to ask others if they could help us get to a hospital. Also, everything happened in such a hurry, I had no time to give anyone any details on who she is (even if I did know more than just her first name), or who I am. In any event, with this in mind, there's no way for these people to find us if we sneaked out. So now she's getting ready to leave, filling up her car. She felt she owed me more than just a ride to Massachusetts, as I saved her life twice. But honestly, I wouldn't know what she could do more for me. Yes, I know what some perverted minds may think right now, and I do not deny that the idea on it's own crossed my mind, but I don't think that that is something I should even ask of her, even if it is as a reward. If anything at all, I think our friendship is enough of a reward. I must say, I've been here in the states for two weeks, yet Jess is the first real friend I made here. Two, if you count Voorhees, but I'm not sure he counts himself as anyone's friend, so I think our friends-status is arguable.

Friday, July 11th, 2008:

Before I say where I am now, you're probably wondering how my trip to Arkham went. I must say that... even if I manage to see a giant monster, I'm sure that I still wouldn't have seen everything by then. Yesterday, for instance, I saw things I couldn't have imagined.

When Jess and me entered the New England area, where Arkham is to be found, she stopped driving the car, abruptly. When I asked her why, she said she remembered she has something else to do. What, she didn't know, it was more like a feeling she had. Strange as this may sound, I had the same kind of feeling, just before she stopped the car. It was probably coincidence, I thought at first, but just to be sure I asked her if she could make a U-turn, drive back for a mile or so, then turn back. What turns out? The feeling came back. But why would we both feel the exact same thing, at the exact same time, twice? I asked Jess why exactly she needed to be here again. She told me that she heard stories of things going on here. She mentioned many words, many names, from all that I can only remember "Necronomicon". Simply put, it's a type of book that contains a great deal of secrets about the universe and beyond that. With that at one's disposal, who knows what can be done. At first she didn't believe such a book exists, but given everything both of us have been through, and what happened just then, we may not be so skeptic anymore. Originally, she was to drop me off and I get to walk away on my own, but since this little incident occurred, I decided to follow her quest for the Necronomicon.

The town in question looked deserted, although it appeared as though there has been some recent activity. It's almost like everyone just vanished without a trace. But when we went inside one of the houses, it turned out everyone was in town, but none of them were awake. As we continued our search, we almost stumbled upon a group of three men. Each of them wore what looked like robes. For some reason, this dress-code reminded me of how people imagine Merlin to have looked like. We didn't know who they were. Either they are looking for the same thing as we are, or they were responsible for putting the village to sleep. Perhaps even both. We decided to follow them, see if they were friendly, or in any way helpful.

From what we gathered of their conversations, one of the three, the only one that was British, judging from his accent, had used some kind of magic spell that would keep people asleep for as long as needed. It would also not be one of the first times that this British guy would do something that would arouse any suspicion among the... muckles I think he said, to think that "they" (whoever "they" are) exist. No idea of what a muckle is, but whatever that is, it would appear that they aren't the only ones aware of these guys. According to them, the churches of the world are trying to warn everyone of the existance of a warlock, which in the opinion of the other two was too big a compliment, even for this British guy. He was right about one thing, though. I remember to have heard of a warlock, even when I was still at high school. But the British guy, Potter as they kept calling him, didn't seem to care about all that. He even joked about the following: if these Americans didn't like him, then why do they even want his help at all? That's when we found out they were looking the same thing as we were.

Eventually, they did find it. All there was for us to do was distract them and get the book. I thought of throwing a rock, but when I did, Potter raised... at first I thought it was just a stick, but it turned out to be a magic wand, as he shouted something in Latin, causing the rock to be pulverized. This wasn't at all at the liking of the two Americans, as that would have them totally exposed to the muckles. Whatever a muckles is, it's obviously the one thing these guys are afraid of. Jess realized as much too, so she decided to move outside, where she would use a bass voice that would echo, with which she scared the three of them. They ran out of the old house in which the book was found, which gave me an opportunity to grab the book and run away. When I came to meet up with Jess, showing her that I've got the book, the three others have already spotted us. They were about to use their wands on us, but not before a horde of rats came from out of the house's walls. And I don't mean your everyday rat, which you find either in the labs, the house, or in the sewers, but dangerous ones, all of which were already covered in blood. The three of them became too busy to drive those off to pay any attention to us, so this was a good time for us to run.

I don't know what Jess is planning to do with the Necronomicon, but in fairness neither was she. All she wanted was to see what's in it and how she can use it upon those who tried to hurt her. Knowing that, I asked if we could stay in touch, as I'd like to know how that would work out for her. So we exchanged e-mail addresses (my real one this time), so we can contact each other. In a way, this marked our new found friendship.

By the way, we still don't know why we felt like we had something else to do, but knowing what those three guys could do, I wouldn't be surprised if they were somehow behind it all.

Rather than dropping me off in Arkham, Jess saw took me to the nearest train-station, where I could take a train to Maine. Once I got on, I slept some more, as I hadn't slept much the night before, even after such a tire-some day.

Now it's almost 7am. Though I didn't wake up because I've slept enough. I woke up because I found some terrible pain going trough my left arm. Particularly on that spot that the bullet has hit me, back in Miami. If I keep my arm in a certain position, it doesn't hurt, much, so I can still write. Still, I haven't felt that much pain in such a long time, so why would I feel anything now? Wherever this train stops next, I will get off and go to the first hospital I can find.


	15. Chapter 15

When I got off the train, I was in Lewiston, Maine. I searched one of those tourist maps for a hospital. The map, unfortunately, wasn't up to date, as the hospital mentioned was gone. The kingdom probably couldn't manage it well enough (okay, that's a bad joke, I only said that because the hospital was called Kingdom Hospital). So I had to search for other ones, and I found one, albeit that this one's too crowded (which can happen with one hospital less). I don't really mind, as I need some time to write all this down. I only hope that when I finish writing all this, and therefor continue reading "Tracer Bullet", that I wouldn't finish reading it before it's my turn.

I've stopped feeling much, if any, pain, plus I had to wait in that hospital for two hours. So I decided to leave and get back on my way to Bangor. I should arrive there shortly. The exposition, however, is still a day away. Also, in the aforementioned two hours, I had enough time to finish "Tracer Bullet". So when I arrive in Bangor, I should take my time to mail this book back home, and find another one. Haven't exactly made up my mind about what to pick, but I'm sure I'll find something.

Saturday, July 12th 2008

If I told you I'm in Ontario, Canada right now, you might believe that. What you wouldn't believe is how I got there. Nor would you probably believe me if I told you I got here when looking for a book.

When I arrived in Bangor, I immediately mailed my "Tracer Bullet" novel back home, after which I searched for a new book. My search led me to a smaller community, called Derry. Judging from the name, I thought this town was a milk-town (as Derry and dairy sound the same). The town turned out to be a little weirder. I saw how a group of punks were bullying one kid, but everyone near them ignored them. That's when I decided to step in. The bullies left the kid alone, but the kid in question ran away as well. Usually, when you do something for someone, that someone says "thank you" or something to that effect, but not this child. In fact, he appeared as though he was afraid of me. Was it my accent? Was it that I stood up for people he couldn't stand up to all by himself? What made him afraid of me? But that was only the beginning of all the weirdness.

I entered a book store, where the owner did nothing else but to stare out. Pretty much like anyone around here. I was even beginning to wonder whether these people were alive or not.

So anyway, I found a book called "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses", by a guy named Mike Enslin. It appeared promising enough. Then I also spotted a book called "Attic Room" by Bill Denbrough, a novelisation of a movie of which Denbrough wrote the screenplay himself. On it's own, that would have been nothing, if it weren't for the fact that it was especially promoted here, only because this Denbrough lived around here. I've seen the movie, so I was a little curious about the book. Upon picking it off the shelve, however, it all collapsed. In surprise, I dropped Denbrough's book, so I only held Enslin's novel. I don't know what it was that I did, if it was anything I did, but I was afraid that the owner wouldn't believe me. So I sank down my knees, at which point my eyes were on this one book, which had opened itself when everything fell apart. It looked like one of those fairy-tale books, with pictures of all types of fantasy characters. None that I've heard of, I might add.

Next thing I know... well, I don't know exactly. One second I was in a book-store, the next I was falling in a dark area, where everything still had it's color despite the darkness. Wherever I was, the rules of physics did not apply here. I was falling down from a height I couldn't possibly survive, but I did. There was a door where I landed, which I entered, only to end up in a more enlightened, and different area. I didn't go inside a house or anything, it was more like I exited this area to enter another. I can't explain how or what happened. What I can say is that in that other area I came across many strange creatures. Some of them wore red robes and white masks, and were quite hostile. When these guys lost their masks, they crawl away in shame. These were some very shy guys. All I had to do was knock there masks off by pulling some kind of plant out of the ground and throw it at them. Strangely, plants weren't the only thing I could pull from the ground, but also something that looked like one of those bottles they use in chemistry. If I dropped these bottles, a door would appear that lead me to a darker version of the area I was in, where I could find hearts that would disappear when touched. These hearts, however, were doing something that no hospital could ever do, as they healed my bullet-wound. It didn't even leave a scar. Unfortunately, that didn't help me get away from where I am, so I continued to search for a way out.

The deeper I went, the more I realized I've seen these creatures before. That's when I remembered, they were those fantasy creatures I saw in that fairy-tale book. As strange as it may sound, but I was convinced that I must have somehow tumbled into this book. If so, then the only thing I have to do is walk through to the end of the book, finish the story, then I'd get out.

It felt like I was in this book for days, if not weeks. But then, I didn't dare to write down in my journal because... well, while an entire year may pass by in a book, in reality only a few hours have passed, depending on how long it takes you to read it. That's why I wasn't sure I should keep up how long I've been in here. And I was right, because when somebody opened the book, allowing me to get out, only a day has passed since I got in the book. The book in question (which was called "Dream Factory" if you must know) was purchased by another tourist in Derry, who came from Ontario and was to return the very same day, and needed to read something when on the plane. This one didn't appear much surprised to see me come out of the book, though. His explanation? He, along with four of his friends, and some teacher he used to know, have been through weirder things. With this, he felt he could contact this particular teacher and ask to bring me back into the States. I could ask them to take me back to Maine, but by the time I'd get there, the exposition would be over, so I told them to take me as far as they could.

So that's where I am now, being driven to Detroit, Michigan, as it's the easiest for this teacher to get to and back again. Detroit isn't on my list of places to see, but I suppose it's a good enough place to make a pit-stop, from which I'll have to find a way to get into Chicago, Illinois. Hopefully, I won't come across any more books that suck you in.

On a side-note, as I was still holding Enslin's novel, it got into that book with me, so I still have it. "Tracer Bullet" was quite alright, so now let's see how "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses" fares.


	16. Chapter 16

It's already night when I arrived in Detroit. I don't know how dangerous the city is at day, so I have no idea if it's any better or worse during the night. The highway into the city alone, of which I happen to have seen it's number, I-75, appeared dreadful. I don't know what it was, I mean the surrounding area looked nice, especially under the moonlight, however little. Still, I don't know what it was that made it feel so weird. Was it the black birds I saw flying over our heads? This is strange, as I usually have no fear for birds. I'm not sure if it was fear either. I can't figure it out, but since my driver didn't feel anything, I didn't think there was any real reason for concern.

Once I was dropped off, my ride returned to Ontario. Didn't think crossing the border would be that easy. My guess is that we didn't look like we were tourists staying for a while. If we were, we'd be more loaded up than just my bag, which was hidden out of plain sight.

They say that some cities look better during the night. And they're right. Especially when it comes to Detroit, as during the night you can't see the mess that the locals are making of it. It already started when I passed by a theatre, of some sorts, where lots of people were gathered for this concert. A concert brought to us by none other than B-Rabbit. If I were much of an R'nB fan, I'd be excited over this, but I'm not. Okay, B-Rabbit is quite original for the genre, but still... Anyway, the concert in question appeared to be getting out of hand, as people were starting to shout some upset words. Some news-reporters who were at the scene told the people watching the news that this sudden outburst is because the concert should've started an hour ago, but B-Rabbit hasn't arrived yet, therefor the concert couldn't start. That's what they're making their fuss about? Then again, I don't really blame them for being angry, I mean if a man like that would let down his fans like this, I'm surprised he even still has fans at all.

A little further away, I was surrounded by a motorcycling gang, each of them wielding some kind of weapon, like a bat or some chains. I don't know why of all people they had to pick me, but I was lucky to get out of there alive. That is, I was lucky that this guy in... a colorful outfit appeared. I'm not kidding. A car stopped by. A masked blond guy, hardly any taller than any of the motorcyclists, dressed in a red and green suit, wearing a yellow and black cape, he stepped out of the car, trying to stop them. The cyclists stopped driving, alright, but not having... well, what you could call fun. They even laughed when that masked guy said his name: Rapboy. A gunshot, at last, stopped all the fuss. It came from a black guy, who judging from his vest was a fan of the local football-team. This guy, however, unlike those back in Miami who could say fifty words per second, was twice as fast. I don't know what he was saying exactly, but from what I understand, either he's a retired or off-duty cop, but in any case he wanted to enjoy a good night-rest, which "we" are making impossible. This started a fight between the bikers, that cop and Rapboy, in which the driver of his car had to meddle as well. I thought I should get out of there as fast as possible, but as I ran into the street, I was nearly hit by another car. This time, it actually did belong to a cop. This cop, however wasn't your usual one. When I first saw him, I thought he was just wearing a metallic armor, but when I saw him moving, or even heard the mechanical sounds he made with every move he made... I don't know how this'll sound, but I'm pretty much convinced that this guy was a machine. In his right thigh, he kept a gun hidden, which he immediately used on the other people. Doing so, not only injured the cyclists, it also caused that black guy I mentioned to scold the machine-man. Saying how he, as a cop is supposed to be keeping the peace, but all that this machine-man could say was that the black man should not intervene with police-affairs. Obviously he didn't know this other man was a cop too. One policeman scolding the other about how they do or do not go by the book. In any case, I took this to my advantage to get away. Rapboy seemed to have decided to do the same, as he... bounced into his car, while his driver merely sighed upon seeing him act like that.

By the way, I passed by that theatre again later that night, and B-Rabbit had arrived on the stage by then. So Rapboy disappears and B-Rabbit is suddenly present. I wonder...

Anyway, near there, I found someone who could drive me away from Detroit. It was a truck-driver, who has something to pick up in Cleveland, something to deliver in some place I don't know. I think he said Springfield, or at least it was something with "Spring" in it, I'm not sure. But in any case, he'd then deliver the cargo from Cleveland somewhere in Indiana, where he expects to arrive in the morning. It's not the best way to get to Illinois, but I suppose it should do. Besides, after having spend some time in a book, searching for one before that, than being driven into Detroit, Michigan, all the way from somewhere in Ontario, and of course having had my little run-in with the locals... this could tire people out a little. I really feel I should sleep.

It's not that easy, as this truck-driver seems to like hearing the sound of his own voice, as he kept talking over his radio, telling people what a Jack Burton would do. From what I gather of what he's saying, I'm guessing he's Burton, who also has a liking of speaking about himself in the third person. I hope there will be an end to his chatter soon, so I can sleep a little.

Sunday, July 13th 2008:

It's 2am, but right now I'm afraid of falling asleep. At some point during our drive, I did manage to fall asleep. But then I had this weird dream. In that dream, the truck stopped driving and Burton was a life-less skeleton. Despite that, I somehow knew that I wasn't alone. I remember to hear some kind of screeching sound, so I got out of the truck to see what was causing that. And standing there, was a man, with his face scarred of burns, wearing one glove with knives on each finger, snickering away. I don't know who he was, or what he was up to, but luckily Burton saw me panicking in my sleep so he woke me up. We have already arrived in Springwood. Or rather close to it, as I could still see the sign that read "Welcome to Springwood". Oh well, at least now I know for sure it wasn't Springfield he was headed to.

My only hope is that when and if I fall asleep later tonight, that I won't see that guy again. It wouldn't be the first time I started dreaming the one dream one night, and dream it again that same night.


	17. Chapter 17

Sleeping in a driving truck isn't easy, that I can assure you. Especially with a driver who can't stop talking. In this case, however, he wasn't the only one. He was talking to two people who kept speaking in questions only. One asks something, the other replies with another question. Burton tried to strike up a conversation with them, but it turned out to be useless. I only just picked up the radio's microphone and asked those two: "You guys ever answer a question?". With this, they stopped talking.

At long last, we've arrived in Indianapolis. Or if you like, Indiana's own metropolis. Who comes up with all these names anyway? But anyway, I thought of checking my e-mails, but I can't seem to find anything that's open today, so I guess I just have to wait until tomorrow.

Monday, July 14th 2008:

I woke up in a hospital, having but very little knowledge of what happened. All I know is that I was walking through the city, minding my own business, when suddenly an old pay-phone rang. I was the only one near it, so I decided to answer. I don't know who it was I had on the line, but he knew me. He knew about my trouble at customs, the missing couple,... he even knew that I was the last one who saw that Scott guy, who's found dead by now, not to mention he knew I somehow disappeared from Maine, only to reappear again in Ontario. He'd love to know how I did that last bit, but that wasn't why he called me. He wanted me to know that none of my deeds went unnoticed. The authorities would have figured this out long ago themselves if they knew where to look. I was about to hang up on this guy, but then he got me convinced that he's keeping a watchful eye on me. Or should I say a red eye on me. He has a sniper rifle, with one of those lasers on them, making it easier for them to point. I wanted to think of a way out of this, but I was too tired to think of anything. I thought of using my bag as a shield, but then he allowed me to listen to something else. I don't know how he knew about everything else, nor how he knew about Jess, but he's got her hostage. Upon hearing her voice, which got muffled away shortly after, I tried to convince him of what really happened at those times he mentioned. That is, I told him everything apart from the incident in Maine. I hoped he'd forget about that one once he heard there's a logical explanation for everything else. But he didn't forget. I told him he wouldn't believe me if I told him. He said "Try me!" and so I did. I also added that if he doesn't believe me, he can ask the one that drove me out of Ontario. He said he did, but upon hearing that they told him I was a spy, whom they asked to leave the country quietly, I knew he was lying. This got him that hot tempered, he threatened to shoot Jess. Then... I have no idea of what happened exactly.

I do remember the dream I had. I saw that man with those knive-sharp nails again. This time, he used that caller's voice, and a mock-version of Jess's. I didn't think I'd see that man again, in any form or other, but I did. I thought of telling myself that all this is only a dream. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to listen. It was like he was a figment of somebody else's imagination, therefor beyond my own control. He even managed to cut me there where I was shot before, or at least close to it. And I had to go through a book in order to have that healed, I thought to myself. Still, that man, who kept calling himself Freddy, didn't stop there. He still tried to hurt me more than he already was, in every which way a man can't do in real life. I don't know what made me have this guy reappear in my dreams. Perhaps it had something to do with all the weird, and scary things I've been through ever since I arrived here. I tried to think of all those times. Other than that sniper-caller, there were those mountain men in West-Virginia, that bat-guy in Gotham City, the crocodiles in New York, and that old woman who fell for me. When that woman started to seduce Freddy, he didn't know what to do. It made me laugh out loud, after which I turned my back on him. I could feel him trying to strike me, but he disappeared before he could.

Although I was awake after that, I was still tired, so it didn't take long before I fell asleep. Though I do feel I must write this down as well. I don't know if it was a dream, or whether it really happened, but a man was in my room. He had to speak for me to recognize him as that sniper-caller. Other than telling me that he never really had Jess. I'm not sure if I heard him right, but from what I understood, he told me that he did talk to her, and because of that he was able to clone her voice. He also said that judging from what he read in my journal, he didn't know what he should think of me. But he did know that I'm too much of an idiot to waste a real bullet on. He complimented himself for deciding to use a rubber bullet when he shot me.

Something weird. When I went to take my journal out of my bag, which didn't look like somebody had taken it out, other than the pain in shoulder I noticed another pain in my arm. I didn't think much of it until now. I was healed on that arm, but now the wound's back. Strangely, it was exactly there where I remember that Freddy to have cut me, which was right underneath the spot where I was shot (in Miami, that is). Did Freddy really cut me? Or did that sniper-caller think of cutting me, which I integrated into my dream? I didn't care, as now I feel I've rested enough.

I don't know why, but the doctors just let me go out of the hospital, without charging me. They even spoke to me as though they didn't know how I got there in the first place. They didn't even call me by my real name, of which I was sure they'd know it by now. I don't know what was going on, perhaps I was lucky that this hospital has such bad administrators. Or does that sniper-caller have something to do with it? If so, why would he want to kill me, only to save my life afterwards. Okay, Voorhees would do the same, but only because I promised him I'll leave him alone. Why would this sniper do it? If it was him at all?

Oh well, I suppose I could try and figure that out all I want, I won't come up with a real answer anyway. Besides, I should really be thankful, as now the cops can't get to me, asking me all kinds of questions which I can't answer. On top of that. I'm in a car driving out of Indianapolis, and the driver doesn't like it that I'm writing something rather than talk to him. He claims to have seen many strange things in his life, but a person who'd rather write than talk? If you ask me, he's the first one to be bothered with me writing all these things, so who's the real weirdo?

I'd better stop writing.


	18. Chapter 18

This driver I spoke of, who said he was called Marshal Teller, he's from a place called Eerie, which is in Indiana. When He told me that, I hoped the town wouldn't be as eerie as it sounded. So far, I haven't noticed much of it. I saw a man dressed up as Elvis, another as Bigfoot, but that's it. Nothing to be at all worried about.

Right now, I'm in his computer-room. I asked him if I could quickly check my e-mails, so that's what I'm... supposed to be doing right now, but I decided to write all this down before it slips my mind.

I only just checked my mails. Most of it was spam-mail. Whether it be to persuade me to buy actual Spam, or for me to buy something called "Net Stab", it doesn't matter. I suppose that's just a disadvantage of having an e-mail account on Yippee. But I'm sure that you're not interested in... well, uninteresting mail.

Being the nice girl that she is (never credited to be), Jess did send me a e-mail. In it, she said she tried to use the Necronomicon, but she didn't recognize the alphabet that was used. So she spent the entire Saturday either at the library, or even New York's "Museum of Natural History", trying to figure it out. All she found out so far is that a similar book is mentioned in Candarian myths, something called the Natarum Demonto, of which the museum claimed to have salvaged a few pages. In other words, I guess it'll be a while before she even translated one word in the book. I thought of telling her that the internet may be easier to use for such things, but then I realized it may not be the wisest. Instead, I decided to encourage her to go on.

Here's something peculiar. I have only just written this down, when I heard voices coming from outside. They weren't kids' voices either. I looked out the window, where I saw... what I can only describe as small plastic-looking monsters, one of which appeared to be partly made out of parts of a radio. I don't know what these things are, nor why they looked like they were made out of plastic. Although, a whole lot of things, I wouldn't be surprised if these were genuinely living toys. Come to think of it, wasn't there a toy-line that had these monsters before? A line consisting out of two factions, one being military, the other being these monsters. Maybe I'm losing my sense of reality, but then, wouldn't you after what I've been through. I'm beginning to question whether my building insanity is truly insanity. People who think they are crazy are sane, whereas those who actually are crazy think they're sane. So all things put together, I don't know what to think anymore. I guess every other traveller before me was right when they said that on their trip they saw things they could never imagine.

After I was done, Teller told me the easiest way to get out of the town and head into Illinois. He told me that the easiest, and cheapest, is to take the train at a local station, that would take me to a place called Terre Haute. Judging from the name (which literally means "High Earth") I assume this city is on top of some hill or other. If so, I don't know how a train would at all run through there. But anyway, once there, I should have no trouble getting into Illinois.

In Terre Haute, I asked for the easiest way to get to Chicago. Unfortunately, there was no direct line that would take me there, and if I were to go to some other place that would have, it would be too pricey, again. So I had to rely on a less conventional means again. So I took a train that would get me into Smith's Grove. That doesn't bring me into Chicago just yet, but at least I'm in Illinois.

In Smith's Grove, I managed to hitch a ride, which would take me to a small town called Haddonfield.

I didn't even finish writing that sentence, and the driver wondered what I was writing. I told him I was keeping records of things that happened to me, things I see, doesn't matter if it were in the bigger or smaller cities. He then wondered if I'm interested in hearing about a local urban legend. Of course I was, so he told me.

Long story short, at some point in the early sixties, on a Halloween night, there was a kid who murdered his elder sister. This got him to be institutionalized for fifteen years. It should've been longer, but he managed to escape, again on Halloween. As it turned out, this kid, in his early twenties by then, had a younger sister, which he wanted dead as well. That sister in question survived, but many people died in the progress, including the killer's own psychiatrist. And what a way for him to go. He stood face to face with the killer, somehow managed to blow up an entire hospital, which killed the both of them. Though this killer, Michael Myers he said his name was, is dead, some people believe that his ghost is still wondering around in his old house. Real estate agents have tried to sell the house, but nobody wanted to buy it as they felt there was a presence they couldn't place. Some even go as far as claiming to have seen the shape of a man somewhere in the house.

Looks like every state in the US has their own ghost-story. There's that prankster in Maryland, "el Barto" in Florida, that house on Long Island, Camp Crystal Lake in New Jersey, and now some ghost of Halloween. From what I know of Celtic mythology (which is very little, but I do know that they're the ones responsible for the existence of Halloween) I think that they'd either know they should stay away from here, or have lots of people coming by to use their old rituals to vanquish this ghost, assuming there even is one.

I just asked him if it's possible that this shape of a man these people saw was some trick of the mind. Perhaps they somehow knew something about the house, or about the small town, or perhaps they were just afraid of old houses. The driver didn't disagree with that idea, but then how would you explain that so many people would have seen the same illusion, even when they don't know anything at all about the town's history? Neither he or I had any plausible explanation for this. But then, a ghost is in essence a being without a physical body. In other words, they may only look scary, but can't physically damage you. In other words, I don't think there's any real reason to be afraid.

I know what some of you may be thinking. With everything that I've been through, how can I still think logically? That's easy. It's not because I saw (for instance) a vampire, that would mean that all vampire stories are true as well. If I automatically assume an urban legend to be true, just because other ones turned out to be true, then what would happen if one turns out not to be true? I might as well think that just because I now know there is a god, I should submit myself to him and become his own personal slave, like anyone else would.

Tuesday, July 15th 2008:

Honestly, is there any state here that doesn't have something or someone that wants you dead? You'd think that after facing with one local legend, I'd be smart enough to not go somewhere where another one resides. Unfortunately, I was told that the guy was dead, so there's no way he could hurt me, I thought to myself.

When I arrived in Haddonfield, the driver pointed out the Myers house that he mentioned. When he arrived at his house, and therefor dropped me off, it was already nightfall. So I needed a place to spend the night. I thought of spending the night in the Myers house, since it's the only place of which I was sure I wouldn't trouble anybody.

I tried to sleep, but I've rested so long in the hospital before, I couldn't fall asleep. I decided to go around the house, see what it is that could get people to believe they saw the shape of a man somewhere. I must admit, I do remember to have heard some kind of breathing sound, but I thought that was just a draught. It wasn't until I reached this one particular room, when I too saw the shape of a man. Except that this wasn't an illusion, it was a real man, wearing dark overalls and a chalk-white mask, and wielding a large kitchen knife. At first I thought it was someone pulling a prank, but when he approached, not saying one word at all, and actually trying to stab me with that knife, I knew that whoever this man was, he was serious, not joking around. He probably would have succeeded in killing me, if I didn't fall through that window behind me. How I did survive that, I don't know. Perhaps I have my bag to thank for it. Although I knew there's some kind of logical explanation for this man, I couldn't help wondering whether that explanation would involve people who'd rob tourists. I didn't want to take any chances until I had a full explanation, so I carried my bag around wherever I went in the house. In the end, it served well to soften my landing.

I ran away from the house and out of the town. I don't know how long I was running, or walking afterwards. But I'm sure that this man wasn't following me. By now, I don't know where I am exactly. All I do know is that I've found an old car-wreck, where I decided to spend the night. I guess, now that I've written all this down, I should get out of the wreck and continue my journey.


	19. Chapter 19

I was picked up by a truck, which belonged to some company called "Callahan". According to the driver, it used to be "Callahan & Son", but with the father gone, the son took over and it became just "Callahan". Now this is as short as the driver could have told me, but he had to start raving on and on about it. He even felt it necessary to tell me how the aforementioned son got together with his wife. Since I don't know these people he spoke of, nor is there any chance of me to actually meet with them, why should I be interested in all that?

So anyway, he dropped me off somewhere inside... what they call the "loop". Didn't know what that meant, and with him talking as much as he did, I had a hard time trying to ask.

Whatever the loop is, I'm not sure whether it's better inside it or outside it. In the city I spotted a gang of motorcyclists. Not much of an oddity, I know, but what if I told you that they weren't human? Seriously, they looked more like mice with antennas on their heads. It could have been a suit, but who'd bother with making such suits, where the masks move as if they were actual faces, only to wear them while riding motorcycles? A movie maybe? Then why didn't I see any cameras? Turtles in New York City and mice in Chicago. What's next? Dinosaurs in Los Angeles? Don't answer that.

I just had lunch in a place called Good Burger, along with someone, not only beautiful, but also a sort of celebrity. At least, a celebrity among chess-players, as I never heard of her. She told me her name was Erica Sanderson, and that she was the daughter of a Peter Sanderson. If I knew that name, I may have been impressed, but I didn't, but she didn't seem to mind at all.

Now you're probably wondering how I met her. It was, in fact, an accident. I sat myself down in some deserted alley, when she suddenly busted out of one of these back-doors. The moment I saw her, I couldn't help noticing just how pretty she was. Today, however, appeared to be a bad day for her to wear heels, as she had to run away from... well, I had no idea of why she was running, but in any event, she broke one of her heels, which got her to lose balance and fall badly. I'd be an idiot to not take my chance to help her then, and getting to know her. The first thing she told me was that she's not in the mood to give me an autograph. Why is it that people in this country assume you even want their autograph? That's exactly what I told her. Still having no real reason to trust me, she told me who she was, but that still meant nothing to me. While other people would have been offended, she decided that this was enough for her to trust me. Why, you might wonder? Because she believed that if I don't know her, that would mean I genuinely want to help her, without any ulterior motives.

All she wanted was just one quiet day, do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, without any cameras being shoved in front of her. And now that I'm with her, she believed she can. She told me exactly what her life is, as being a chess-champion. The only reason she became one, is because of her father. No, not to keep up his reputation. In fact, given something that happened to both of them when she was a child, back in the New England area, his reputation was pretty much blown. He was once suspected of having committed murders. He's proved innocent, but to many of the mass media that means nothing. So she tried to be the champion with the reputation that her father once had. And now that she is, she's unhappy. Not only do people remember who he was, they now expect her to be her father. She's had enough of all that, so meeting with someone who doesn't know her was like an answer to all her prayers. When she said exactly that, I told her to not use that expression lightly, as someone might hold that against her some day. Not only did she agree, she smiled when she did that. I don't even know if she saw me going bright red at the time, but luckily she needed to use the bathroom just then, which gave me a moment to cool off.

You're probably wondering where I am now. I'm at her hotel room. After having spend some time with her walking through town, seeing things as a tourist, rather than as someone who's merely there for a champion-ship, I suppose we created some kind of a bond. I told her that I wasn't staying anywhere, so she offered me to stay with her for the night. She did that for two reasons. One was because she felt she owed me (which is one reason for which she shouldn't ask me) the other... was kinda personal. For that very reason, I'm not going to mention what it is. What I will tell you is this. When her father was suspected for those murders, and the real murderer decided to show himself, something happened to her. It's not a traumatizing event, if you were thinking that. Quite the contrary, she found something that's... a lot more satisfying than sex would ever be. She's done it before (sex I mean), so she told me, but she could never really get into it for this one reason. This one reason was something she could never tell anyone, but she felt comfortable to tell me. So she asked if I could... satisfy her in that matter. Which is exactly what I just did, or in a sense still doing. She doesn't even mind me sitting down writing. I don't know why, but having done this not only makes me feel more comfortable, it also gives me something of that same feeling that I had when I first met Jess, except a little more intense. I can't exactly explain it, not only because I promised to not actually say what it is, but also because... whatever this feeling is, it's something new to me. And the strangest thing is, I enjoy every second of it.


	20. Chapter 20

Wednesday, July 16th 2008:

Since Erica had won her last game of chess, she's to go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to play for the semi-finals, which are to take place next week. After what happened last night, I guess it's safe to say there's this... bond between us, for a lack of better terms. Anyway, given that I can't reschedule my trip, it's impossible for me to be there when she's playing another game. At least, since I need to get to Montana next, she offered me a seat next to her on the plane to Milwaukee. Once there, I'm sure I'll find my way into Montana. So that's where we are now, waiting at the airport, until we can board our plane.

Curious, but for some reason a storm came up, which made the sky too unstable for any plane to take off. Given that, our flight has been delayed. For how long, nobody could tell for sure. As I understood it, the storm looked as though it was pretty stationary, the wind wouldn't blow it away, as well as for every raindrop that the clouds lose, another cloud is being made for it. It's like there's some kind of force that wants there to be rain above this area. I can guess what kind of force.

So, since we had no idea when this storm will be over (or if it'll be over), Erica decided that we should get ourselves a ride that would take us there. So she refunded the tickets she bought, only to buy us tickets for a bus. In doing so, she didn't particularly manage to stay away from the press. I actually even had to cut in to help her out, only narrowly escaping my so-called fifteen minutes of fame.

Now that we're on that bus, on our long way to Milwaukee, I can only hope that this trip will go without any incidents. Especially since Erica is asleep right now. It's funny to see her, letting her head rest on my shoulder, so peacefully. If another incident occurred, that would disturb her peace, which I wouldn't want to happen. Funny to note however, I don't quite understand why she's so sleepy. It's not like what I did to her was something that would have her that tired. I guess that since chess is a sport that involves the brain, a lot more than with any other game, that this is something that could tire her out that easily. But then... I don't have any real reason to complain, do I?

Which reminds me. Though we're acting as though we're a couple (I mean we've held hands at times, we did spend the night together, etcetera) I'm not sure if we actually are one. I suppose I should ask her, but that thought alone makes me shiver. I could ask, but how would she react. I mean, counting today, we only know each other for two days. I know, we know each other better than anyone knows us, we've shared secrets that nobody else knows about us, but still... Damn, did we do all that in just the two days we know each other?

The bus-driver just told us: the road we were supposed to take is closed off, as an accident has occurred. For that, he's taking a different route. This is weird. First a storm that wouldn't go away, so our plane can't take off, and now an accident that has us take a different route. All I need now is a third incident, and then I can tell for sure that this isn't a coincidence.

Alright, a few hours have passed since that last note. All I can say is that this was my deadliest adventure yet.

On that other route I mentioned, we arrived at an area that was surrounded by a fence. It looked like a regular town, or what's left of it. According to the driver's (not so up-to-date) map, there was supposed to be an easy passageway through. He could turn around and try a different route, but he decided against it. With the help of one of the passengers, he managed to pick the fence's lock, so he could open it and drive through. Once he did so, the people at the back saw military people gathering at the open fence behind us. They readied their guns, but they didn't shoot. That was a reason for the driver to ignore them. Why would the military be doing this, I remember myself thinking. Given this not so warm welcome, I even laughed when I read this sign: "Welcome to Raccoon City".

I don't know how far we've gotten through, when suddenly these... people started to show themselves. They looked alot like those zombies I remember seeing in London. I didn't know this outbreak happened here too. Then again, some time after that outbreak, there was another one, in which some kind of a virus killed people, only to bring them back to life as fast-running zombies. But these things didn't run at all, so I doubt they're at all connected to that incident. They can't even be related to the incident back in the sixties, for then they'd be... deader by now.

Anyway, I can try and decide where these things come from, but then I'd be digressing. As I was saying, these things started to come out of nowhere, surrounding the bus. The driver, however, didn't dare to drive over them, so he slowed down. A bad thing to do, as that made it easier for them to get to us. It took the screams of many of us to get the driver to keep on driving. Unfortunately, with this, some of us were bitten. Luckily, neither Erica or me were among them. That's when I remembered. Despite of the variations in which these zombie-outbreaks took place, one thing that was always consistent was that a bite would turn people into zombies. Somebody else remembered the same thing, so he persuaded the driver to stop and let those people off the bus. This met with some disputes, as some people didn't think they had any reason to think that bites would change people this time. Others didn't think that they should take those kind of chances. I didn't say anything, as I didn't know what to say, neither did Erica. But then, she did say something like "God help us", or at least she wanted to, but I silenced her before she did. As I said before, another incident like this and all this couldn't be coincidence anymore. This is just another act of God to get to me. That's what I told her. She didn't have any reason to believe me, so she looked skeptical. Unfortunately, somebody overheard me talking, so that's when many decided that I should be sacrificed, to atone for my sins and all that... I don't usually use this word but I see it fitting here: all that bullshit. Still, the majority wanted me to leave, so I did, along with Erica, that one guy I mentioned, and some other people who sympathised with me. Once we were off the bus, it drove away.

These people asked me again whether I didn't overreact. I sure hope that I am, as I don't like the idea of some alpowerful being that would hunt me down forever, but unfortunately I've seen things that get me to think otherwise. After I told them about those things, they understood why I would think that. But they also recognized that I don't think like the average religious person, as anyone else would pray to God for forgiveness, while I keep many of my atheistic thoughts, in which I don't see that god as a path to anything good. Should I? A storm which people can't identify, an accident that has our driver take a different route, that brought us to a zombie-infested area?

Before I forget to mention this, it did seem like I made Erica jealous when I mentioned another girl. Well, this did show me how much she cared about me.

After a long walk, sometimes run, as these zombies couldn't catch us then, we met with that bus again. It looked as though their demanded sacrifice didn't help them at all. Instead, it either killed them, or turned them. In any case, there was still enough left of the bus, so we could use it to drive out of here. It took a while before any of us could get the hang of driving it, but we managed. When we reached the other side of the fence, the military were about ready to fire at us. They told us to stop, which we did, after which some people in special suits came to us, inspected us for any bites, after which we were given some kind of drug. They didn't tell us what it was for. They're pretty "hush-hush" about all this, as Erica would put it. As I'm writing this, that one guy, who became sort of our leader, is still trying to convince the military that this wasn't our fault that we trespassed.

Even now that they are convinced, they still won't let us go. According to our guard, they making these sort of contracts, which we're to sign. With this, we're not supposed to talk about what happened here to anyone. They could've told me sooner, as I've written all this down already. I only hope that they didn't see this.

Good news. For one, I didn't need to sign anything, as I'm no American citizen, but they couldn't express it good enough that I shouldn't talk about any of this to anyone. Also, one of the other people offered to hide my journal somewhere where they wouldn't look for it, so when they searched me, as they saw me writing things down, they didn't find anything, safe for that mechanical device. That device was my way out of this, as I told them that I will tell people about all this if they wanted to confiscate it. They laughed at first. When I asked them why, they told me that they will deny everything, and even destroy everything so there can't be an investigation. I laughed at that last one, because if they could destroy all this they would have done it already. But they didn't, so they can't. They had nothing to say to that, other than giving me that device back and not searching anyone else for my journal.

Okay, so I broke that promise, but they can't touch me for that, so I can afford doing this.

Thursday, July 17th 2008:

We finally arrived in Milwaukee. This was, however, the time for Erica and me to say goodbye. Okay, we didn't actually say the word. She helped me to get a plane-ticket to get to Montana, after which we shared a kiss. After that, we exchanged phone-numbers and e-mail addresses, so we can keep in contact. So we've become a couple, which come to think of it feels a little weird, as we live so far away from each other. I suppose we could find a way to live together, eventually. I hope so anyway. I'll finish my trip first, then we'll see.

By the way, she knows I can't be reached by phone just yet, but she promised she'll mail me every day. I can't guarantee that I'll reply every mail, but I will reply whenever I can.

This only just happened. A woman, who called herself Melinda, just spoke to me. She said she came from very far away just to see me. She only knew to find me here as she along with somebody else (as she spoke of "we"), saw me on TV, along with someone of whom she knew she was to come here. So this Melinda has been waiting for me here, why? Because somebody had a message for me. She told me who, but I didn't know the name. That somebody was on that train I was supposed to be on, back in Washington D.C. That sounded weird, as that particular person would be dead by now. He was, actually. In other words, this Melinda could talk with dead people. At times, she even spoke to this dead person, or as it appeared to: she spoke to someone who wasn't there. This was like that student I met in Philadelphia. So he tried to warn me back then. From what, I asked Melinda. She told me that this ghost has spoken to God directly, and he wants me to stop blaspheming, or else... and that's where the message ended. Melinda didn't seem to believe much of the god-part, but it did seem like I've done something that caused a fury with someone, so I have to stop blackmailing this someone. Whatever the case, if this someone, be it God himself or someone or something else, wants me to blindly follow him, then I have no reason to keep down my "blasphemy". So I told this ghost (at least I think I did as I couldn't see him) that God can fuck off.


	21. Chapter 21

Friday, July 18th 2008:

So I've finally arrived in Montana, and am on my way to the "Museum of the Rockies", which is found in Bozeman. In case you're wondering what drives me here (figuratively speaking), there's a simple answer to that: Dinosaurs.

Admitted, there are other such museums in Europe as well, though all of them have been imported there from here, the US. It's one thing to see a fossil, it's another to see where they've been found, or how they're being treated. In fact, from what I heard about this museum, we (the visitors) get to see how these fossils are being put together, I might see the digging site where they were found, and with a little luck I may see them actually digging one up. Also, recently a new fossil was found, which I'm eager to see with my own eyes, rather than seeing some picture in the paper, or some of the things that reporters shot.

If you want to know, my trip here wasn't all that pleasant, as there were some kids who kept singing these songs, of which I'm not proud to know that they were of that Montana person. It's not because her last name is Montana (if it's at all her real name) that she's actually from Montana. I tried telling those kids exactly that. I had to move away so they would stop bugging me.

Anyway, when I arrived here, the museum was already closed, but now I'm on my way to see more. I know that the museum goes about more than just dinosaurs, but unfortunately it is my only real interest here. Who knows what I might come across.

Well, I must say this has been quite an interesting day. I've learned more about dinosaurs, and paleontology, than I ever could imagine. But my guess is you want to hear all the highlights.

In total, there are only three complete Tyrannosaurus skeletons found, and this museum has one of them. Seeing it like this, I can only imagine how scary it must've looked when it was alive. Same goes to other fossils I saw. It was mentioned that this one skeleton, though found here in Montana, it's in the London Museum. That's why all they had from that one specimen were pictures. On the pictures, there were scratch-marks on the T-rex's skull, which proves that it was scratched in the head before. Although, those scratches weren't the creature's cause of death. As a young paleontologist had pointed out, years before, the skull also shows scorch-marks, as if it was on fire. Died in a forest fire? Likely, except that if so, the marks would be on more random spots, all over the skeleton, but there were only marks on the skull, at very precise spots. Too precise to have been just a coincidence. And I bother mentioning this, why? Well, that would bring us to the next highlight.

The one discovery I spoke of earlier was the fossil of what scientists believe to have been a dragon, from long before the KT-event (that's how they call the (first) event that a meteor crashed on Earth, creating such a mass-extinction). I've seen the remains of two dragons, a few years back, when I visited the London Museum, but those were recent specimens (they were alive when humans already existed), so I was curious about how one from much longer ago looked like. In any case, not like the one that all the myths spoke of, as this one was bipedal, so counting the wings it would have had four limbs altogether. Unlike the one in London, which had six, again counting the wings.

Another interesting thing to mention was the museum's "Hall of the Weird". The hall in question didn't seem much weird, as all we saw were more fossils. Or were they? When I took a closer look, they looked very white, as though they were really stripped to the bones and cleaned afterwards. Even stranger, while they resemble dinosaurs, they didn't look like any fossil I've ever seen. I'm not going to pretend to know much about paleontology, but this much I do know. It wasn't until I read more about this that I also noticed other weird things. Every fossil that was ever found bears some markings that these things were ever alive. I mean, bones could have been broken, and healed (or not at all), these creatures could have scratched each other, or even been eaten up. Not one of these skeletons had any of these things. The weirder part is that carbon-dating has dated these things to be only a few decades old. To the scientists around here, it's like somebody just constructed these things, then later buried them for paleontologists to find. This may be the only rational explanation, indeed, but this still raises tons of others. Who would do this? Why? Even worse, how did he or she do this? How did someone just make these things then buried them?

I only just left the building, and witnessed how a group of people were arrested for breaking the peace around here. Their reason to break the peace also forms the very answer to my earlier question.

I left the building, only to see these two people, one older guy and one younger girl (not even older than me) who were having some kind of dispute over whether this museum should or should not be here. The guy was called Edward, while the girl... well, I didn't get her name, but her T-shirt read "GO GREEN", so I'll be calling her the Go Green Girl, or G3. From what they were saying, I could tell that Edward was a devout Catholic, while G3 was an atheist. Edward believed that this museum is full of people who do all the unnecessary tests on these fossils, as the simple truth is that God has just put these things down to test our faith. G3, on the other hand, knew that these fossils are too detailed and too complex. Why would anyone go through all that trouble to make these things if they were just to test faith? To be more clear, I might want to make the following distinction: fossils are the ones who are thousands if not millions of years old, and the skeletons are the weird ones.

They are both right and they are both wrong. About the skeletons, I have no doubt that indeed God just put those down. In that sense, Edward was right, and in that sense G3 was wrong, as these skeletons weren't detailed at all, unlike the fossils. But then, G3 is also right to question the following. God already has devout believers, so why does he need to test them? He doesn't, of course, so why bother? Come to think of it, I can only think of one other person who would do such a thing: Adenoid Hynkel. Since he was to take over the world during World War II, I can imagine he wanted to be sure that his followers would stay loyal to him, so he'd test their loyalty whenever he pleases. God and Hynkel, not such a bad comparison if you ask me.

I'm starting to feel a headache coming up, so I'd better keep this writing on hold for a while.


	22. Chapter 22

Saturday, July 19th 2008:

Once I got away from that museum I mentioned, I found another cargo-train that took me out of Montana and into Washington. Strange, I must mention, that there's a state called Washington, yet Washington D.C. isn't located anywhere near it. Why is that? And for as far as I know, there's not a town by that name either.

I need to think just a little less, as this seems to worsen my headaches. I guess my mind has had a lot to process the past few weeks, which is now getting to me, not to mention that I had to sleep in that train I mentioned. Hopefully, I'll find all the rest I need in this small town. Twin Peaks, I believe it was called. It's a little early, but if I don't get some sleep now, it'll probably worsen.

Sunday, July 20th 2008:

How and where should I begin to describe my current position? Should I mention my dream first, or immediately skip to the here and now? I feel I should mention my dream first, it may be important.

So I was at that hotel in Twin Peaks. With my headache, it wasn't easy to fall asleep, but I guess I did eventually. That's when I dreamed of the strangest things. I saw a giant, who spoke in riddles. He said the ghost keeps a wolf under the rock. Whatever that meant. But then there was a dwarf, who introduced me to this girl, whom he claimed to be his girlfriend. The girl in question was quite hairy, had a weird set of eyes, very sharp nails and teeth. I couldn't be certain, but she resembled Erica in so many ways. There was something about the way she smiled, her face in general, the way she moved,... it was like the woman before me was a werewolf-version of Erica. What's that even supposed to mean? That I think of her as a wolf? She's one of the nicest girls I've ever known, much nicer than the ones back home, so why would I think of her as a wolf? But it doesn't end there. At moments, I saw this man, an astronaut by the looks of it. He told me that... I'm not sure I got this right, but he said that a Ferluci is a mere servant to the... dog? It tried to take the dog's... throne, many times before, but failed as it was too powerful. I know this doesn't make much if any sense, although... come to think of it, haven't I heard the name Ferluci somewhere before? To top it all off, the girl then approached me, and said that I don't need to explain myself at all. Additionally, she whispered me... something about a sister.

That's when I woke up, only to find myself... nowhere near the hotel, or Twin Peaks for that matter. How did I end up here? Wherever "here" may be?

Okay, I just felt that headache again. It even hurts to just move my eyes. Did I catch some kind of disease? If so, I hope it'll be over soon.

According to my watch, it's Sunday 3 am. I'm beginning to wonder how many more times I'll wake up this early in the morning. From here I can see light from some kind of cabin. Hopefully, it's owner is friendly enough to help me. But then, around this time of the night people usually aren't awake, even when they're at home. Why is this one? I hope there's some stupid explanation for that.

You thought dreams were weird, try and get this. The cabin I mentioned had many cars parked there. One of them was marked, so it was an official vehicle, from some kind of clinic in North Vancouver. If I knew enough geography, I'd know where that is exactly, but I don't. At least, now I know I'm somewhere either in or near North Vancouver. Anyway, the cars I mentioned indicate that this owner must have visitors, yet it didn't sound that way.

I just heard something. I'm not sure of what it was, but it sounded like some kind of growl, followed by somebody else shouting something, causing this... beast, I think, to growl even louder. Whatever's going on, the sounds alone don't seem to help much against my headache. It may be best if I go away and have the proper authorities take care of this.

I couldn't alert the authorities, as one of the cabin's residents was suddenly outside. She was a young girl, or at least looked that way, given the way she was dressed. She didn't ask me what I was doing here, but instead invited me inside to have a drink. When I got inside, I immediately realized she wasn't one of the residents, she's the very owner of this cabin. If so, was it her whom I heard shouting earlier? Then what is that growl I heard? What is she keeping here? I didn't know what to say or what to do, as I didn't know what she was thinking, or if she's merely pretending to be nice or genuinely nice. When I heard that growl again, I had my chance. The moment I heard it, so did this girl. She was about to beat me down, but I threw her drink in her face, after which I knocked her down with the glass. Other than a bird's skull, she wore a key around her neck. I didn't know what it was for, but judging from where the growls came from, which was beneath the floor, I had an idea of what it unlocked: there was a trapdoor on the floor, which was locked, so I thought the key was to unlock it. When I unlocked it, I wish I didn't do it, because a beast jumped out, which immediately jumped on me. I had a few scratches from that attack alone, but I didn't think it would stop there. Luckily, I was wrong about that, as it then looked around. My guess is that it realized it wasn't locked up anymore, so it now wanted to attack the one who kept it captive, namely the girl. I can only guess what that girl must have done, but if I were the beast, I don't think I'd react in any other way. If you were kept like this, and tortured, judging from the wounds it had, wouldn't you be even a little angry? So I let it do what it felt it must. But to be sure it wouldn't try anything on me, I ran away.

I don't know where I am now, but I can only hope that I'm far enough from the beast, so it won't take any notice of me. As for right now, I can only hope I'd be on my way to Seattle, as that was supposed to be my next stop.


	23. Chapter 23

Monday, July 21st 2008

I woke up this morning, in a hospital, with this girl standing next to my bed. I don't know the girl, though I have but a vague recollection of how I got here. All I remember is that my headache only worsened, the further I went, to a point that I started to have a nosebleed. Then came a moment that I was bleeding somewhere else. I don't know where, but I could have sworn it was somewhere near my gender, or it actually was my gender. I don't know, because when I noticed how much I was bleeding, it was too much for my aching head to bear, so I passed out eventually.

So now I'm awake. The girl I mentioned said her name was Tamara. To my question as to what brought her to see me, she said she sensed something about me. Actually, she's been sensing it since Friday, which is the same day that my headaches started. She didn't know what it was, but she did know that there was something supernatural about it, or else she wouldn't have sensed it. When she arrived here, so she told me, she heard the doctors say that I had the most peculiar tumor they've ever seen. Usually, a tumor takes some time to grow, but this one appeared as though it was planted into my head, much like you try to pry an extra piece of cloth into your baggage, when it's already full. They had no explanation for what they saw, or why I was even pissing blood, as they found no malfunction in my kidneys. What they did witness was as though my entire organic structure was changing. The latter one was nothing that Tamara sensed, but some guy did. She didn't know much about that guy, apart from the name Logan, and that he only sensed me because,... I'm not sure I understood this right, but he sensed some kind of beast growing in me. As this Logan guy did not know me, he didn't know if I would try to suppress the beast, or embrace it. As it appeared (wonder why he'd tell Tamara that much) he couldn't take any risks of me becoming "another one", so he allowed some of his own blood to flow through my veins (no idea as to how I survived that), and I was cured from that beast. All the while, Tamara took care of that tumor that was killing me.

So two people just saved my life. The guy did it out of more personal reasons, which is also the reason he didn't wait for me to wake up. As for Tamara, she's been sensing some kind of disturbace for quite some time. Only this time, she actually gets to meet someone who's directly involved. All I did was tell who I think that's responcible. Judging from her responce, she was a wiccan girl who didn't believe in this one deity that the majority of the world believed in. Under normal circumstances, neither would I, I told her, but too many things have happened so far. And not only to me. But just to be sure, she knew of someone in the state of Washington who might be able to help us.

Also, you probably already knew this, but it turns out that North Vancouver is in British Columbia, Canada, and I was in a hospital in Vancouver city now. This made last weekend's events even stranger. I know that Twin Peaks was near the Canadian border, but why would I somehow be transported across the border? Come to think of it, I dreamed of Erica, who looked like a werewolf, later I met a beast that looked a lot like a wolf, and if I may believe Tamara, or this guy Logan, I was about to become one myself. This wouldn't only mark the second time I met a werewolf, but it also got me to think that my dream wasn't at all a dream. But then... what was it?

Anyway, I agreed with Tamara to get me to see that guy, but I wanted to do some things first before I go anywhere. Though she seemed annoyed, she agreed anyway. So I first wrote down all of this, and now I'm gonna check my e-mails.

In finding a internet-café, I got to explore just a little of Vancouver. So far it appeared alright. I didn't see anything... unusual, or met anyone strange. Apart from Tamara, but she said she wasn't from Canada, so she doesn't count. I guess Vancouver is the first city I encountered that doesn't have anything strange about it.

I just checked my e-mails, expecting to find only four or five mails from Erica, but I found twenty. For every day that passed by, she wrote four or five messages, not one for each day as I expected. I'd love to read them all, but I'm already running behind on schedule, so I read only the ones from the first day she sent me any messages and replied to them. In those replies, I didn't tell her explicitly what happened to me, but I did tell her that whatever happened made me wish she was with me, so I didn't have to face it all alone. Naturally, I also explained to her why I didn't reply to the other ones, hoping she'd understand.

Then there were Jess' mails, of which there were only two, so I have some time for that. She told me she managed to translate some of the Necronomicon's texts already. She even experimented with one of the rituals mentioned. In doing so, she told me somebody now believes she's seen a world where humans are operated by machines, rather than the other way around.

When Tamara helped me get into Washington, I thought she was joking. I mean, all she did was tell me to close my eyes, after which she put her hands on my shoulders. Then I waited, until she told me to open them again. When I looked around, I saw we were still in Vancouver. We had to drive out of town, before I saw the sign that said we were in Seattle. The sign in question could use some renovation, as someone has sprayed a line over Seattle and wrote "Promise City" over it, only for that latter to be sprayed over again to be replaced by Seattle again.

Anyway, we went to see this guy, who wasn't much older than either Tamara or me. This guy, who said his name was Kyle, apparently was able to do some things of which nobody, not even Tamara, was supposed to know about. Given the whole thing that transpired around this city with the so-called 4400, I wondered why this Kyle didn't come clean with his abilities. All he said is that it's complicated. I didn't ask for any details, but in a way I don't blame him. Even if I had special abilities, I'd rather keep them to myself.

So anyway, with a mixture of both Kyle and Tamara's abilities, they were able to see whatever it was that I was supposed to remember. The tumor was indeed planted in my head by some supernatural means, but nobody could see where it came from. Then they analyzed the other events I spoke of. The lightning that nearly struck me, the train that I was supposed to be on. With the latter, Tamara seemed to be more familiar then she led on, but with this she seemed to have felt two forces at once. And that storm over Illinois, that same force was sensed there. This appeared to be somewhat frightening to Kyle, because his girlfriend is a Christian, he wanted to be sure I wasn't pointing any fingers. I never ruled out that possibility, but given the timing at which these things happened to me,... well, you tell me if you've got a better explanation. Kyles seemed to have trouble believing that the god that everyone worships would want to do all that. After that, I decided he'd better be left alone.

What happened to Tamara, I don't know. The one minute she was there, the other she was gone. It was like her curiosity was satisfied, so there's nothing left for her here. Oh well, that Logan she mentioned only stayed as long as he needed, so I didn't expect anything different from her. I should now finish writing, so I can explore Seattle. That one piece of Seattle I've seen so far looked very much like Vancouver, so I hope there's still something here that doesn't look like I've seen it before.


	24. Chapter 24

I don't know the best way to summarize the last events, but I'll try anyway.

First, I was walking in the streets, passing by a building under construction, minding my own business. Suddenly, I felt a powerful force pushing me away, after which I heard some kind of lod thunder, and felt some wet drops falling on my pants. When I turned to look, not only did I realize those wet drops were blood, I also saw that a crane was lifting something heavy (a container or other), which was about to fall on me, so someone pushed me away. I don't know who it was, nor can I see his face. I know it's a "he", as a girl came to the container shouting his name: Kevin. I didn't know what to do, but that when people surrounded me, offering a solution.

As I'm sure you're aware of, Seattle has become the home of the so-called 4400 (who are especially known to have special abilities), and other people with similar abilities. It were those people who were not only surrounding me, but they were part of the 4400-movement, that is to create a new world-order. They offered me to become one of them. Why? Because they believed that Kevin's rescue wasn't just coincidence, he saved me so I could become one of them. If I don't take the shot, his death would have been in vain. I suppose it never occurred to them that Kevin merely saved me because it's the right thing to do, so if I do say yes, I think he would have died in vain. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the 4400 in general, in fact I'd like to have an ability of my own, but... once you've got one, you have to get it registered (or rather tell their leader what you can do, but it means the same to me), and you must join their 4400-movement and acknowledge the leader as the world's only leader, to never use your powers without that leader's say-so, etc... but the worst part is that not only have I got no way of knowing in advance what power I'd get (I mean, I wouldn't want to risk being able to breath under water, and as a side-effect not being able to breath oxygen anymore), there's also a chance that I'd not survive the procedure. In other words, this leader might as well just lock us all up and gas us out, just for not having any powers. I really understand why anarchist and religious fanatics the like would assassinate their leaders (which they've already done, twice, only for that leader to replaced with someone worse than the first). One of these people overheard me thinking that (must have been a telepath, as I never said any of this out loud), so he/she alerted everyone else, and I was being chased. The only reason I was able to shake them off, was because some other guy, who has an ability but disagrees with the 4400-movement's idea of a new world-order, teleported me away. Seriously, all he did was pick up a pamphlet he found, looked at a picture it had, and suddenly we were there.

This guy, who said his name was Marco, is part of another movement, who'd use their abilities (special or not) to create a more free world. He and this movement consists mostly of people who gained their powers, through the 4400 or otherwise, but anybody could join their movement, dispite of who they are or what they can do. Sounded great to me, although I wasn't sure if I could trust this guy, but then he asked whether I've heard of that incident in Florida, where the Scientology HQ was destroyed. He told me that "el Barto" is one of them. He too felt that Scientology demanded too much of him, so once he gained his superpowers, he used it to destroy the HQ, and still is destroying other places related to that religion. That's when he gave me a wed-address to which I can surf and see what this movement is up to. Anything for a better world, I guess.

I thanked Marco for helping out of there, after which he teleported himself away. Now all I have to do is find out where I teleported to exactly.

By now, all I've seen is three arrows pointing to places called "Spoonerville", which doesn't sound too good to me, and two others called "Duckburg" and "Saint-Canard". The idea that these cities might be populated by ducks (as their names suggest) hadn't crossed my mind yet, or a car stopped by, which had three walking and talking ducks inside it. These three looked so much alike, the only way in which I could distinguish the one from the other is their color of clothes, as one was dressed in red, another in green and the last one in blue. Given their old age, I couldn't quite understand what they were saying, but after some time, I did understand that I was in Calisota. Knowing that much, I asked how far away that is from California, and they said it's just up North, or at least I think they did. After another while, not only did I manage to understand they're heading in that direction as well, we also came to the following agreement: they'd drop me off in another town, something that had City in it's name, where I can probably get a bus or something that would take me to L.A., which I should hope so.

So here I am now, in that particular town, Basin City. Now, I can't be sure, but when we passed by the sign that said "welcome to Basin City", or something in that nature, it looked as though someone had sprayed the letters "BA" in "Basin", so it would look like the place is called Sin City. Also, I tried to get a bus, but all the ticket-dispensers are closed.

Night has already fallen, so I have to use a streetlight so to wri...

This city obviously doesn't like to be ignored. As I was writing down all that, there were these guys who called at me. As I was too busy minding my own business, as usual, I didn't care about what they had to say. Unfortunately, they couldn't have that. They took my journal out of my hands, after which they ran to a fence, and threw it over to the other side, then they ran away. I had to use my Swiss knife to cut the fence open, just so I could take back my journal. I knew that thing would come in handy some day, one way or another. If only I was any good at throwing it. When I tried to reach for it, somebody threw a knife between me and my journal. After that, I didn't dare to move another muscle. That's when a woman's voice shouted something, followed by some guy's more reasonable voice. I told that guy what I came for, which he believed, after which that woman I mentioned told someone else (probably the one that threw that knife at me) to stand down, so I could leave, promising never to come back in "Old Town" as they call this area.

So these guys were dying for attention, but when they didn't get any, they sent me into an area with dangerous women. How selfish can they be? Oh well, all I can say is that I didn't stay in Basin City any longer. I have no idea as to where I am, all I do know is that I'm inside the remains of some old farm-house. Hopefully, I'll have more luck tomorrow morning.


	25. Chapter 25

Tuesday, July 22nd 2008:

After waking up in that farm-house I mentioned, I tried to find my way to the nearest town I could find, or better yet, to find another ride that would take me as far from Basin City as possible. Luckily, I found the latter. It's not easy to write all this while being on the back of a pick-up truck, but on an even road, and since the driver was careful, it's quite easy, or at least easier than it would otherwise be. I must say that these people on this truck have a somewhat weird air about them. From the looks of them, I'm sure they're a family, a man with his wife and their daughter, of which only the latter seemed to have anything to say, albeit that she usually says one to four words at the time. I suppose if somebody hasn't got much to say, I shouldn't expect her to say much more, right? But that wasn't what made the air about them so weird. I can't describe it, but there was something about the way the looked, or moved their heads, or the way their eyes were set, as they didn't appear angry, happy, or to have any emotion at all. Other than that, I saw two masks on their dashboard, one of an old woman and the other of a baby, and right next to it lay a sack, with pieces cut out as though it was to be worn as a mask too. I don't know who or what these people are, but much like with Rusty Nail, if I don't ask them anything, I'll be safe. I hope.

It took a while, or at least it fell that way, before we arrived in the nearest town, a place called Arcadia, but I didn't mind. The girl I spoke of did ask me what I was writing, but I don't think that what I answered got her to think of me as a threat to them. If it did, they wouldn't have dropped me off and drive away, would they? Immediately after arriving there, I looked for the nearest bus-station, so I could go away. It didn't go that way, though. Instead, I met with this girl, who called herself Joan, who even wanted to be the first one to welcome me to Arcadia.

A thought that just crossed my mind: so I meet a girl named Joan, who lives here in Arcadia, so it's safe to call her Joan of Arcadia. A funny coincidence, knowing the old French legend of Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d'Arc as she's called locally. Now I hope that, unlike Jeanne, this one doesn't think she talks to God. But then, she for some reason thought of having me stay in her house. That's enough proof that she doesn't do that.

I don't know why she asked. She said she noticed that I'm a tourist, who's travelled far, without much needed rest and nourishment, so she thought she could help me with that. Her family wasn't too keen about that, especially not the father, who was a cop. I suppose I should respect him just for protecting his family. But when I listened to their many whispers, it looked as though their daughter has many of these... urges, to do thing uncharacteristically of hers. Among those things, they mentioned building a boat, destroying a work of art, getting a job, joining the school's chess-club,... Well, according to some documentary I saw, Jeanne d'Arc did have a brain-tumor, so let's hope that that's not the case with Joan, just for this family's sake. By the looks of it, they've got enough trouble having an eldest son in a wheelchair.

Okay, what I'm about to tell you now... I don't know what it will sound like, but with all the crazy stuff that's happened to me so far, I suppose this one can't be that hard to believe.

I overheard that father talking over the phone, where he gave my name and asked them to do a background-check on me. Knowing in how much trouble I've already ended up with the American authorities, I don't think it's advisable for me to stay, so I left as fast and quietly as I could.

Once I left the house, I boarded a small truck. Not one of those so-called 18-wheelers, like the ones that Burton and Rusty Nail rode, but those that run on four wheels. Or maybe six wheels, if for of them are put on the same axis, I don't know, but that's not important. What is important has to do with the driver. He spoke to me, quoting things I wrote in my journal, like "to hell with God", "God is anything but benevolent" and "defy his authority". Upon asking how he could know any of that, told me that's because he's all-seeing, all-knowing and almighty. He even said that he told Joan to take me into their house, along with all those other things that her parents mentioned. Judging from his description, this guy is either an avatar of God himself, or just some nut who thinks he's God, just because he can somehow know things other people don't. In either case, this guy was dangerous, but I thought of playing along, just to see how far he'd go before he breaks down.

He told me that I need to understand that he can't have people talk about him as I do. I told him that if he's as forgiving as he's believed to be, he should just let me do what I must. If he did that, what kind of god would that make him? I answered: a good one. He didn't shake when I said that, but I could tell that I'm somehow ringing through to him.

After that, he didn't say anything anymore. Instead, he dropped me off at some school, in some town, when night has already fallen, so I only had the light of the moon and the streetlights to see anything. I can only assume that this town was called Sunnydale, as that school was called "Sunnydale High". Here he dropped me off, and told me to go into room number 207. When asked why I should do that, all he said was that I'll find my path there. That's when he drove off.

That's called cheating. If he is who he said he is, he'd know that I'd rather not be a slave, and not to do what I'm told, but now he made me curious enough to do it anyway. I'll tell you one thing, whatever I'd find there, it won't change how I feel about that... I can't say man, but you know who I mean.

Judging from the looks of the school, it appeared more new than the surrounding houses. It was like either this school was newly introduced to this town, or that something happened to the old school so they had to build a new one. You'd also think that newer buildings would have all the modern technologies for security, but the door wasn't locked at all. I suppose that if I'm caught, they can only charge me with entering, not breaking.

Room 207 is one where they teach Religious Education. If he wanted me to convert, he could've sent me to a church, but instead he sent me here. Why? I don't know, but before I could think of anything, a small guys entered the room. Or rather bashed into the room, as they didn't bother to open a door or a window to enter. These guys, the best way to describe them was as people with heavily deformed faces, and very sharp teeth, growling like rapid dogs. That last one wasn't the best way to describe them, as I have seen people who look like dogs before, and these didn't look anything like them. They didn't have hair all over, nor did they have sharper ears. It wasn't until I used a crucifix to defend myself, like you would with a baseball-bat, that I realized what they were. When hit with the crosses, they screamed out loud, but not because their agony came from the blow, but because the very touch of the cross made them burn. At that point my best defense was not only to use the cross, as that one would break down every second, but to try and throw all the chairs at them. They were, however strong enough to fend those chairs off, even breaking them with just one bare hand. At a point, the cross broke, but it made a very sharp point, with which I tried to fend them off. In doing so, one of them got stabbed in... what I can only think of as the heart, after which he turned into dust.

All their physical strength, and yet they're somehow not strong enough to stop the sharp point from penetrating their bodies? That Dutch surgeon that allegedly killed Count Dracula, back in the late 19th century (if we are to believe his report), he needed at least a hammer to shove the wooden stake through the count's heart. And here it went that easy? Whoever designed these vampires, he obviously didn't make them to last.

Anyway, for some reason, the cross became dust along with that vampire, so I needed to use something else in my defense. I picked up a heavy book, which I used to beat him down, until he fell onto a wooden piece of one of the chairs, killing him.

Once the fight was over, I looked upon the room and realized they won't be teaching these kids anything religious in this room for a while. Shortly after that thought crossed my mind, I saw that the book I held was entitled "Holy Bible". Is this why that guy-who-thinks-he's-god sent me here? So I'd find this book? Or because he thought these vampires would kill me? Either way, I was raised as a Christian, but being that didn't necessarily mean that I had to read this "Bible" of theirs. I suppose, once I finish reading "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses", I guess I now have another book to read.

Even stranger is when a bus stopped right next to me, of which somebody aboard asked for my name, after which she let me get on. That somebody was talking to someone over the phone, after which the phone was passed on to me. I don't know who I spoke to, all I know is that it was a woman, who identified herself simply as Hana. She told me she's seen something that may get me into trouble. That is, much deeper trouble than I'm already in with the authorities. So she convinced the people on this bus to take me with them, to a place called Neptune. Once there, I'm to look for someone named Mars. I don't know who this Mars person is, but if he's able to help me in any possible way, I suppose I should take my chances.

* * *

Note: to those of you who recognized the reference to "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". Joss Whedon (the creator of the franchise) originally wrote the screenplay for the movie, and since the movie didn't look in any way that he had imagined, he got angry and made the TV-show. Given all that, I decided to stay true to the movie, with certain elements from the TV-show. In other words, I stayed true to what I think Whedon originally had in mind.


	26. Chapter 26

Wednesday, July 23rd 2008:

Before I tell you what happened today, it may be best if I explain the situation a little. The bus that I mentioned yesterday is, in fact, headed to San Francisco, which is not on my itinerary, but I suppose it's thé way to get as close to Los Angeles as possible. But until it gets there, it will make a few pit-stops. One of which was in Neptune. But that wasn't where we stopped first.

The first place we arrived was a city known as Angel Grove. I don't quite know why, but that name sounded familiar for some reason. When I asked the guide, she told me that the town did get some fame, as at some point in the mid-nineties mystical people came from outer space, trying to take over the world. I think I've heard of that before, though I don't remember all the details, as I was only 10 years old when that happened. Still, I don't think that's the reason why that name sounded familiar.

Since the bus-driver gave us an hour to have breakfast, use the bathroom whatever else we'd find necessary, I used that time to, again, check my e-mails. Somewhere between me buying a sandwich and looking for an internet-café, I saw a notice on a lamp-post. It was one of those "Missing" notices. In this case, it was about somebody I know, namely that guy I met in New Jersey, Jason Lee Scott. That's why the name of this city sounded familiar, he mentioned that this is where he's from. That's when I panicked. I was the last one who saw him alive. And although I wasn't the one who killed him, I didn't do anything to apprehend the guy who did, nor did I report anything to anybody. If I stayed here in Angel Grove much longer, it would only be a matter of time before somebody finds me. Then what do I do? Tell everyone I didn't do anything because I pitied the killer? I might as well go back to Crystal Lake and let Jason Voorhees kill me.

In my moment of panic, two people approached me. I don't know who they were, some black guy and some Asian girl, but clearly they were interested to know why I kept staring at Scott's picture. They wanted to know whether I knew him. I denied, of course, and they believed it. That's when they, much like Scott would, started to rave on on their history together, in which the black guy felt it necessary to show off some of his... moves, which I can only describe as that of a hip-hop artist who tries to be a martial artist. I soon enough lost my interest, that or I just wanted to get away from them as soon as possible. Luckily, when the guy did his moves, the girl was distracted. I then tried to sneak away, but that's when both of their attentions came back to me. I tried to tell them I need to go somewhere, but they wouldn't listen. They are, if possible, even more obnoxious than their friend was.

Luckily, I spotted a duck across the street. A duck, much like those three other ones I mentioned before. When I pointed that out to those two, they believed it was some kind of monster they had to kill.

I need to ask: what's up with those three and their monster issues?

In any event, those two ran to that duck, who could only just dodge their attacks, or even sweep the floor with them. In any case, while they had their hands full on that guy, I could finally sneak away. Also, it's probably nothing, but I would swear that this duck had this vague look on his face, almost as if he recognized me.

Unfortunately, since they held me up, I was only just too late to get back on the bus. I'd be lucky to find myself another ride. Unless of course, if that Hana somehow knew where I was and who to contact at what time, I hope she somehow knows that I'm not on my way to Neptune right now. I can only hide from those two i mentioned for so long, in a container mind you, quickly writing all this down before it slips my mind.

Later, a pay-phone rang. Remembering my adventure in Indianapolis, I'd rather not answer it. But then, again, somebody else was called, but whoever owned the phone, the call wasn't for him but for me. As I guessed, it was Hana, again. She indeed knew that I missed the bus, but for some reason wasn't aware of why I'm afraid of walking around in this city. But she told me neither one of us has the time to answer all questions, including the ones that I have for her. She told me that I should find a way to get into a place called Placid Pines, which is a few miles South of this city, and I have to get there before the morning, where another bus will arrive that will stop in Pan, but from there I should be able to find my way to Neptune quite easily. Also, she told me to be very selective as to what I write in my journal. Which means that I shouldn't write too many names, or no names if possible. It's a little late for that, as I already mentioned hers, this Mars person I have to find in Neptune. I suppose I should not mention any names from anyone else I met in connection with all this. Question still is, why is this Hana helping me? For that matter, what is she helping me with?

If she's such a helpful person, I wish she'd show herself in person more often, especially when I turned into this one alley. There, six other people awaited me. How they knew where to find me, I don't know, but all six of them were just as obstinate as that black guy and that Asian girl, so I therefor assumed they were in some shape or form connected to them. They're not what you'd call quite the friendly bunch. I mean, not only did they just call me evil, for no good reason (that I'm aware of anyway), but also... well, did they really need to be with six, four of which appear to know some kind of fighting sports, just to get to someone like me, who hardly even has the physical strength to carry a gun? In a sense I was lucky when... that other guy appeared. This other guy appeared out of smoke, babbling about being a threat that flaps through the night (while it was still daytime), saying something else that was completely non-sensical, before he finally said something, of which I can only assume that that was his name: Darkwing Duck.

Funny, I saw another duck earlier, and then this one. Would this be the same one, just wearing a cape and a mask? If so, it would explain why he recognized me before. He somehow knew that the government is looking for me, and that is why he tried to take me away. He even thanked those six for helping him catch me, but he'd take it from here. Unfortunately for him, they wouldn't let him get away with me, so they attacked him. I must say, this Duck-guy's ego surpasses Freaknoid's idiocy, if you remember him from Washington D.C. But since that is what appeared to keep him standing up, who am I to argue his ego. Seriously, when the six took some... things from behind their backs (which was funny, as the two females in the group either wore a skirt or pocket-less pants, or some of the males didn't even have back-pockets, so where did they get those things from), they used those things to change their clothes into... what I can only describe as ridiculously heavily armored suits.

It should be noted that these suits, though I never saw them before, they looked kind of familiar. Each one had it's own color, each one appeared to represent some animal or other... I'm sure I've seen that before, I just can't remember where. All I can remember, for some reason, is that it has nothing to do with what I heard about this city before, it's something from a much more distant past.

But I digress again. Despite their heavy armor, or rather because of it, the six of them were hardly any match for that duck. The only reason their fight lasted that long is because... well, if it were just one-on-one, the fight would've ended sooner, but here it's one-on-six, so with one down that makes still five to go. For the duck's sake, I hoped he'd survive them. Though he tried to deliver me to the authorities, I don't particularly blame him for doing so. Besides, with him fighting all six of them by himself, he's even braver than I am, or much braver than those six put together. I'd say he earns a lot more respect from me than those six.

Anyway, I managed to hitch a ride that would take me as far as Placid Pines. The drivers in question were tourists, like me, who were on their way to L.A. When they told me, I cursed to myself, as that's where I was originally headed. The right people at the wrong time, can you understand how frustrating that is? But then, they were quite the funny couple. Everything the one or the other said, especially when one of them uses the word "normal", it was a reason for the other to be angry. When they were angry, the guy started to call the girl "Mozart", while the girl called the guy "Whale". In many ways they reminded me of that Ben I mentioned before, from back home. Speaking of which, there are these books which Ben loves to read, all written by the same guy, Steve something... anyway, he wrote about the importance of toilets in men's life, and the disadvantages of living with your girlfriend, among other things. Normally, I wouldn't know about this guy, but Ben doesn't talk about anything else. If I could remember that writer's full name, I could recommend it to this couple, see how much his work would (not) change their lives.


	27. Chapter 27

Thursday, July 24th 2008:

Why do I keep ending up in situations like this?

Yesterday, the couple dropped me off in Placid Pines, where I couldn't find a place to stay. Not one within my price-range anyway, as I felt I have already spent too much money, so I should save as much as I could. One local resident offered me a solution. In the woods there are these camp grounds, which isn't maintained anymore, so nobody would mind me spending time there. He even admitted to sometimes go there, stealing some of the conserved food it still has. Remembering this, I probably should have asked why the place wasn't maintained anymore.

When I arrived there, I noticed there was a lot of yellow tape. It was the typical police-tape that reads "CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS". On the scene I found chalk-drawings, likely of bodies they found, and traces of blood. This wouldn't be the California version of Camp Crystal Lake, would it be? If so, then I assumed that whoever caused this, they probably already caught him. In Crystal Lake, since the killer is always rampant, the authorities would probably die trying to collect the bodies. That's not the case here, so I assumed they caught the killer. Thinking back, I wonder why I made such an assumption, based on some other place, many miles away.

I did as much as I could. Had a long... long shower, washed my clothes,... I thought is was funny to see that everything, like electricity and water still worked. But I suppose, since I could use it all for free, I have no reason to complain. Even when somebody finds out, there's nothing he or she can do to me.

How wrong I was, as somebody did find out. That somebody was a man, wearing a white mask, that covered his entire face, and with a chainsaw in his one hand. Though, I don't know if I saw this right, but it looked as though the chainsaw was his hand. In either case, he didn't seem to have the best of intentions. All I could think of doing was knocking him down with the best log of wood I could find (best in that it should be hard enough to knock someone out cold, and light enough for me to lift it). With him out cold, that gave me some time to pack all my stuff together and get away from there.

I spent the night in somebody's garage. I was lucky to get in and out without being discovered, or even get on the bus in time. In any case, I'm on my way to Pan, so I should arrive in Neptune soon enough. By the way, is it me, or does this particular area have a thing for ancient mythology? I mean, Neptune the god of the seas, and Pan the faun. Then there's this Mars person I should find, which is the Roman god of war. Next thing I know, I'll be playing on the old Sega Saturn, somebody tries to sell me some of that infamous Valkyr-drug, or I'll be watching another documentary about the S.S. Poseidon, or some other movie based on what happened on that ship.

It took me a little longer than I hoped, but I arrived in Neptune eventually. Once there, I looked for Mars. I could find only two of them, one male and one female, but since the male was printed before the female (since their names were printed in alphabetical order), I looked for the male first. When I did, I found out he hasn't been inside his house for quite some time. In fact, the land-lord was even selling the place. I had to pretend to be a buyer so I could enter the house. If finding this guy (assuming he's the one I should find) would somehow help me, I figured I should look for everything that may be useful. Inside, I found a package. In it, there were some credit-cards, a driver's license, all under the same name, which I'm not going to mention for my own safety. However, the picture on the driver's license is mine. The name, nor the birth date, among other things, they weren't mine, but that picture is. Am I supposed to use a fake I.D.? Other than that, there was some kind of bag, which appeared to be made out of the same fabrics as the inside of my bag, as well as especially made to stick somewhere. But to what? Last, and right now I'd say least, there was a portable hard-drive, or a USB-stick.

When I went to another internet-cafe, I tried to see what's on the stick. And what I found on it, it made me wonder why I had to have it. All there was on it, was a song. I don't know the name of the artist singing it, but judging from the way it sounded, I think it's an old eighties song. On top of that, a repeated line in the song was "Never gonna give you up", I therefor assume that that's what the song is called. That's when somebody, using the username Wireless, send me an instant message. This was strange, as I hadn't logged in on my messenger account. Wireless, who turned out to be Hana, thought that this was better, as it's easier for her and her friends to keep others from reading whatever we were talking about. Also, the chances of us being overheard are slimmed down with this. So I asked her what's the meaning of all those things I found. She explained that I had to use that fake I.D. while in the States, use that bag to hide my real I.D., which could also be used as a double bottom inside my own bag, so nobody would find out who I really am. As for that song... she didn't tell me how, but she said that it may come in handy, one way or another. But that's when I had it with her. I appreciate her trying to help me and all, but why on a distance? In fact, why was I even doing as she's told? She didn't tell me, though she claimed she'd want to. So I asked her whether she can't give me any hints as to who she is. Or those friends she mentioned. She then claimed to have downloaded all the necessary info on the stick, but it may be best if I go check it out somewhere else. For that matter, I'd better check my mails somewhere else as well. How long is all this going to take?

Friday, July 25th 2008:

I took the first ride I could find that would take me as far out of Neptune as possible. The one driving, however, was someone of Irish descend, at least I think so, I could be mistaking his accent for another one, but for the sake of argument, let's call him the Irish guy. He wasn't particularly the friendliest ride I ever had. For one, he wouldn't have me writing in my journal, or read anything. Especially when he, all the sudden, got a call, he only went from bad to worse.

He answered, but he reacted as if he didn't know the caller. He even looked at me quite suspiciously. He kept talking to the caller, but it was as though he, or she, wouldn't stop talking. That's when he hung up the phone, stopped near an old building, where he got out, even dragged me out, beaten me until I bled, only to ask me a question to which I don't know the answer. Who was calling him, and how did she know where I was. In other words, Hana likely tried to warn me for this guy, but she couldn't, and now he knows that I'm important somehow. When he checked my (fake) I.D., he was somehow surprised to see it. Clearly, the name I was supposed to go by meant something to him, which in turn didn't make things that much better. I don't know when or how this Irish guy was stopped, but he did at some point. I'm guessing I was unconscious by the time he stopped.

So I spend the night, wounded, mostly unconscious, in the rubble of some old building, or what's left of it, somehow being able to bear the strange scent that hung in the air, that reminded me of how hospitals smell. Maybe I was even under the influence of that smell, as I remember to have seen two white mice, walking and talking, one short and one long, respectively smart and dumb, judging from how they sounded and acted. They went into my bag, only to not come out of there again. At least, not that I witnessed.

When I woke up, I saw a dead body, or what remained of that. Still, there was enough left on him to suggest he was my ride. By the looks of it, he was electrocuted. Does Hana have something to do with this? Why is she helping me? For that matter, why does she keep watching me? A point will come that I don't dare to make a move, knowing that somebody's watching me. Also, why do girls seem to be so nice around here? I mean, Jessica, Erica, Tamara, Hana,... And is it me, or do all these names end with "A"? Anyway, why are they either so helpful, do they confide in me, or even want to spend their time with me, while all the girls back home are disgusted of me?

Oh well, I could try and figure all that out, but then I'll be stuck here for hours. Then again, with that Irish guy gone, I can use his car to find my way to L.A. Finally, things are starting to look good for me.

I only just looked through my bag. That mechanical thing I got from England, it's gone. Somebody took it. This is strange for two reasons. Why would anyone steal that thing and let me keep all my money and credit cards? Okay, the latter is not really mine, but you get the idea. As for the other reason, what is it that makes this thing so special? If it's usefull in any way, it's not even big enough to fit a human baby in it.

An absurd idea just crossed my head. Remember that I mentioned seeing mice? What if they somehow took it? Like I said, absurd. Although, I do keep smelling that hospital odour, plus there's enough of the building to see that it was once a lab. Oh well, it's caused me some trouble with the border, who knows what else it would do when I try to either get out of the States, or to the moon. I guess I should be glad I got rid of it.


	28. Chapter 28

Still on my way to L.A., I got stuck in a traffic jam. From what I gather, there was a police-chase, that ended deadly, at several places, all over the freeway. After what I've seen before in Miami, why doesn't that surprise me?

Anyway, I found a laptop in the car I was driving, so I decided to use it to look at the files I was given. At last I found out who Hana is. Her last name's Gitelman, she has a military background, is of Israeli descend,... but the most interesting bit is when I read that she was last seen re-entering Earth's orbit, when working on some communication satellite. I'm no expert, but doesn't that usually kill people? So if Hana is dead, how could she possibly be talking to me? The same thing I ran into when I read about an associate of hers, called Warren Trask. He used to work for some software company, called Ubient Software, which is bankrupt by now. He was a computer-programmer for that company. But again, according to what I read, he's dead, died of a stroke, simply put (the stroke merely made him weak, somebody just pulled the plug on the machines that kept him alive). The rest of the files made no sense either. They described programs, one of which was called Gridman, another one was Tron. There even was some guy, Asian judging from his name, but to make things simpler I'll just use his nickname, Izzy. So this is her group of people? Two programs, one Asian kid (not meant realistically, if you remember I explained the political situation between the East and the West already) and two people who are presumed dead. Even if this somehow makes sense, it still doesn't explain what brings them together, or what they do.

I decided to not spend too much time trying to figure that out. The laptop had a wireless internet-connection, so I could use it to check my mails (should've done that long ago already, but the situations never allowed it). Since I didn't know how long I'd be in this jam, I assumed I'd have enough time to read ALL of Erica's mails. I know what this sounds like. It's not that I don't like her staying in touch, but does she really need to send four to five mails every day? Then again, I guess this would mean that she really does miss me, so I should see that as a compliment. For obvious reasons, I couldn't tell her about my current situation, even if it wasn't Hana but one of her friends that contacted me, so I only told her that I nearly ended up in a riot with... some of the 4400 and 4400-esque people, that I met with a mad man with a chainsaw, a masked and caped duck,... and no, I don't expect her to believe me at all, but then I don't want to lie to her either. She, on the other hand, mentioned that she's won the semi-finals and is very excited about the last game. How I wish I could be there. She also mentioned having been in mortal peril, but then she was saved by some Hancock guy. I've heard that name before, but I had to see a picture of him to know who it is. And yes, she did make a picture, of a man flying away. I could be mistaking, but he looked a whole lot like that one black cop in Miami. If that cop is secretly a superhero, he's not doing much to hide his identity. But it was this one picture she's sent me that had me worried. While still in Milwaukee, she saw a wanted-notice. On it's own, that was nothing, but then Erica realized how much the person on that picture (or rather an artist's sketch) looked like her. She thought it was funny, so she made a picture and sent it to me. Other than "WANTED", it mentioned that the mayor of Seattle, Farrel or something (which again sounded familiar), was looking for this one. But that wasn't what disturbed me. I've seen this person before, as she appeared in my dream when I was in Twin Peaks. I'm certain of that, how could I possibly forget the sight of that: someone who looked like somebody I love, except all hairy, with sharper teeth and ears. Again, I'm beginning to wonder what that dream meant, provided it was a dream.

On a side note, Jess send me some interesting things as well. She managed to send someone to a world other than that one where machines are the boss. Okay, she didn't actually say that she send him somewhere else, she just described how somebody started telling people that he's been in another world. When that someone returned, all he could say was that he saw dragons, like the ones that you see in movies. He meant Dinosaurs, but he wouldn't say it for whatever reason. Even stranger, to him, was that these Dinosaurs could talk, and that the humans there had these weird markings on their eyes. I don't know what that meant, but he was clearly upset about what he saw. In reply, I asked whether she couldn't do other things with the Necronomicon, besides sending them to other worlds (by asking her if things other than these strange transportations would happen). In another message, she send me a picture she saw in the Museum of Natural History, of which she believed that I may be interested. It was an old one, from around the turn of the century (19th to 20th, that is). It showed a group of people, who were fighting... I have no idea of what it is they were fighting, it looked like it had long legs, which were the only things visible of "it". The people in question, there was one cowboy on a white horse, one cowgirl with two guns, one guy dressed in black clothes with black hat, cape and mask, another guy wielding bigger guns than the girl, wearing a long coat, and finally a guy with a pale face, of which I could swear he didn't have legs and was somehow floating in mid-air. But that wasn't the only thing that disturbed me. That guy with the big guns and the long coat, haven't I seen him somewhere before? He reminded me of some older man I remember to have seen. If those two are one and the same, I doubt that man would still be alive today, so I must have seen him some many years ago. Still... I'm under the impression I've seen him not that long ago. Another thing to add to either my weird life, trip, or to the list of this world's many oddities.

Saturday, July 26th 2008:

Had to get on a boat to get there, but I finally made it into L.A. I hoped I'd have enough time to visit the Happy Kingdom, but I've already lost too much time by now, so I'll have to skip that. Also, I've found a missing-notice, that was about some guy named Jack Bauer. Looking at his picture, I recognized him immediately. He's that sniper-caller from Indianapolis. Now I know that man's name. So anyway, I did what anyone else would do and phoned the number, to say where I've seen him. But that's all. I didn't give them my name or anything.

I must say, despite that earthquake that happened in the year 2000, the area is still flourishing. Well, maybe for the rich people, as I noticed a lot of poor ones. Still, it was weird just walking around here. For one, I couldn't be standing here nor there, without risking to be in a movie-set. I might as well not move at all, just for safety precautions.

I saw the hill that has "HOLLYWOOD" in huge letters written on it. It's nothing I haven't seen before, still... to actually see it with my own eyes instead of on a picture, I could have but an idea as to how big those letters are.

Being here also gave me something of a preview as to what movies are to be released soon. One of them is entitled "Friday the 13th" and subtitled "The True Story of Jason Voorhees". I'm sure, they'll make him look much more of a monster than anything. They did the same with every movie that was ever made about what happened back in late 19th century London, whether it be because of Jack the Ripper or Dracula. There's also a 13th "Jaws" movie to be released. Honestly, these Hollywood people do not know when to stop, do they?! I mean, "Jaws" supposedly tells the tale of how an island was attacked by a shark. That's something that happened only once in reality, but they feel they have to make so many movies out of it, suggesting it happened over and over again. This is just like the time they wanted to make a third "Stab" movie, although unlike the first two movies, this one was entirely made up, nothing happened that had the director think he needed to make a third movie. Luckily, that third movie was never finished (as that same director killed the entire cast and crew, I'm not kidding). When walking into a video-store, to see whether they have any movies that aren't released back home, I noticed there are more movies based on real events. Unless I'm mistaking, there are eight that tell of Michael Myers (one of them a re-telling of the first), ten that talk about Jason Voorhees and his mother (some of which even made fun of him by suggesting he'd go into outer space or straight to hell),... these people really have no limits. There are only a few who'd rather make a movie, though based on a real guy, just change a few names (much like that one Leatherface movie with Jessica Biel) rather than using the names of those who were actually involved. I suppose they were afraid of how the people would react to it. If you ask me making movies based on true events, once, maybe a second time, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but what I see here is just ridiculous.

Oh, by the way, I passed by this one house, a small hospital by the looks of it. There was a notice, which said that "survivors" could gather here to talk about their experiences. By survivors, they meant people who met with a maniac who tried to kill them. In my case, I would have to take my pick. I suppose I could go here, tonight, just to hear what others have to say.


	29. Chapter 29

Sunday, July 27th 2008:

I didn't stay in L.A. much longer after talking to these other survivors, for reasons I'll tell you soon. Right now, I'm sure you'd rather want to hear about these other people.

I must say, most of these survivors are females, for some reason. You'd almost say that whoever attacked them fell in love with them at some point, provided that the maniacs attacking them were male. One of the survivors was called John, who was about my own age. He described how his mother was attacked by a tall guy, but saved by some military guy, who then became his father. He also mentioned that another man came to kill him, but some other guy helped him and his mother out of that situation. The only other guy was someone called Dylan, who claimed to have been attacked by some kind of demon, who terrorized both him and his mother. He also described that this demon was either a character from a movie, or someone inspired by that character, he didn't understand much of it himself as he was only six when that happened. There was also some woman, around forty, who mentioned that some older woman avenged her dead son, when she worked at a camp in New Jersey (which made me afraid of mentioning my own experiences with Jason). Then we had this woman called Nell, who moved into Hollywood along with her husband, but the building they moved into had a voodoo-spell that kept someone else alive. There was also this other girl, also about my age, who told us about how her brother had won a sort of toy-robot, which at some point couldn't make a difference between game and reality. Then there was this girl, of whom I was sure it was Melinda, whom I met before, but she claimed her name was Julie. She described how a fisherman with a hook tried to kill her. That happened in North Carolina. She wasn't the only one who came from afar. There was also another woman, along with her niece. The woman had a scar on her face, and another around her thumb, as though it was once cut off. The woman, whose name I forgot, told us about how she was attacked when she was sixteen, and how she then had to help her niece with a copycat-killer. By the way, for some reason, I appeared to be the only one who noticed that this woman looked a lot like Nell. Then there was someone called Laurie, from Illinois, who didn't mention any names, but she said her brother tried to kill her. Lastly, there was a woman, who was also the one who started talking, so I assumed she was the therapist. She said her name was Nancy, and described a man with knife-sharp nails who killed her friends and her mother (a guy similar to Freddy, mind you). This Nancy also happened to look a lot like Dylan's mother, or so he claimed. When it was my turn, I asked, just to be sure, if this Nancy was our therapist. Funny that nobody else seemed to have wondered this, but that's not the point. She said no. In other words, there just was no therapist who organized this!

Realizing this, people started to go away, but all the windows were nailed shut, and all the doors were locked. In other words, there was no way out. That's when people started to die. All of us were dead, until there was only me, Julie, Nell and that woman who looked like her, as well as her niece... until only the five of us were left. The killer, who wore the same suit as the killer in "Stab" does, got confused when he saw the two women who looked alike, which gave me and Julie a chance to knock him out cold. As it turned out, this guy had enough respect for the killers that were mentioned here, so he decided to round up all these people and to kill them off one by one. He even hoped that Sydney Prescott would make it here. I've seen the "Stab" movies enough times to know that name.

So anyway, after that, I left the island, hoping that the rest of my trip will be without any incidents. But then... isn't that what I've been doing from the very beginning? Anyway, the car I used to get here, I ditched it somewhere, surprised that when I returned it was still in one piece. Now, either I'd hitch my way to Las Vegas, or I'd use this same car to get there. I chose the last one.


	30. Chapter 30

Monday, July 28th 2008:

On my way to Las Vegas, yesterday night, the car ran out of gas, so I had no other option but to leave it. Luckily, I found myself a ride that would take me there. The one driving was a young woman, who was a Hollywood producer, on her way to some kind of business in Las Vegas. She noticed that I flinched at the sound of Hollywood. I didn't tell her why, but she somehow understood. She told me that she and her brother have been through something themselves. First their parents died then her boyfriend turned out to be, and I'm using her own words, a real beast. She and her brother were lucky that he didn't kill either one of them, or even got them to turn just like him. It almost sounded like her boyfriend was a werewolf and trying to change them as well. It wasn't any of my business, nor did I have any way of knowing for sure whether she indeed meant "werewolf", so I didn't ask anything.

You may be interested to know that before I hitched my next ride, I used the laptop again. When I did, Hana told me that I should erase all the files I have on her, and destroy the laptop I used, especially it's hard-drive. I'm guessing she's afraid of someone finding out about her and her friends, so I did as I was told.

My stay in Las Vegas was quite brief, though. I only came to see the... well, light city with my own eyes. While surely it's the one place to get rich in one night, it is also the place to get poor in one night. Okay, I do admit to have tried one game. I didn't win... much, but I suppose it was enough just to take the bus out of town, and to buy myself a decent meal, which I haven't had in a very long time. It also allowed me to sleep in a cheap hotel. Didn't think I'd find such a place in Las Vegas, but I did, albeit that when I entered the hotel, I had to go through another casino. That is what would make Las Vegas a real pain to visit. Every restaurant, every hotel,... everywhere you enter, you come across a casino first. Imagine being too young to enter a casino, and you're visiting Las Vegas, how are you supposed to eat anywhere, or even sleep anywhere?

I can't say that my ride in this bus was very quiet. Somewhere out back, there were three cats that make a lot of fuss. And I don't mean that there's an old lady in the back who owns three cats, which make people's lives miserable. If only that were the case, honestly. I meant three cats, who resemble Darkwing Duck, or even those three ducks that got me into Basin City, in that they too acted very human. According to my doctor, I'm allergic to cats, so I've got had to do my very best not to sneeze, otherwise they'd hear me and bother me. One thing I should note is that these kids claim to have seen the entire Warner Bros. Studios built. Unless I'm mistaking, that happened decades ago, and they can't be that old. Unless... You know how some people would say about others (whom despite their age, still keep acting like children) would never frow up? In this case, I'd say it's quite literal. They keep acting like children, or some exaggerated version of them, and therefor they'll physically never grow old. In a way, I envy them. If they'd ever die of anything, it wouldn't be of age. For once, I feel envy for cats.

Anyway, so now I'm somewhere in the state of Colorado. I had to get off, because my allergies were really acting up at a point, I was afraid I couldn't hide from them any longer. So I got off at the first stop. Well, the first stop since I decided to get off, that is. I only know that I am in Colorado, because that's what the last sign I saw read.

Tuesday, July 29th 2008:

Again, I found myself in another difficult situation. And all I did was just passing through, but not to these people.

I arrived at a place called Creek Mountain, which had a military complex. But just because I was passing by, these soldiers arrested me, held me for hours inside the complex, asking me all these weird questions. When I asked them why I was being arrested, they said I was trespassing military property. This was funny. I mean, some miles away from there, I passed by another such complex in Cheyenne Mountain, and nothing happened. But pass by this mountain and all of Earth is shaking. They asked me what I was doing there, what I know and where I got my info from. Even when I, after a few hours, finally convinced them that I was just passing through, they still wouldn't let me go. They kept me for observation, or even asked me questions about... well, me. I showed myself to them with a different I.D. than the one I used to get into the US. And though they believed it was my real identity (or so they said), they wanted to know whether I knew anything about that, and I quote: "Terrorist, car-thief and murderer". I said I didn't, which wasn't a lie. I didn't kill anyone, nor did I steal any car, or even plan to terrorize anyone. But again, they didn't believe a word I said. Shortly after that, they found out what was on my USB-stick. Likely believing it has some valuable intel, I guess they were pissed when all they got was just some eighties song. It would have been funny if the situation wasn't so serious.

That's when V showed herself. Following Hana's advice, I decided to just call this girl V. She was an FBI agent, to whom the fake I.D. I used meant something. I can't say what it is, but when she saw that somebody was arrested, using that name, she rushed down to Creek Mountain to find me. I explained my situation to her, not talking about Hana. Unfortunately, she didn't believe me when I said I just made this I.D. myself. That's when she did confide with me that she knew something weird is going on. She didn't just happen to have found out about the I.D. I used, somebody who called himself Warren told her. If I remember correctly, Hana did show me that a Warren was part of her group. Still, it was possible that she knew something that I didn't, so I couldn't be too careful about saying anything. That's when V's cell-phone rang. Which was strange, as we were underground. These things actually work down here? In any case, both Warren and Hana were talking, and told V about who I really was. Knowing all that, V decided to help me. She would help get every file that exists about me deleted, so there's no record of me whatsoever. It did make me wonder why Hana nor Warren ever thought of doing that themselves. They said it would be too conspicuous if these computer-files just disappeared. Plus, there's the possibility that people kept written records as well, which they can't delete.

When I asked them what makes me so important, they didn't answer. All they said is that the less I know, the better. But if I don't know anything, then how am I supposed to lie to anyone? To them, if I don't know anything, I won't have to lie. So, I still don't know what it is that makes me so important.

So anyway, V managed to convince the military that she'll personally escort me to a better place, where she can further interrogate me. She did insist that she'd be allowed to take all my belongings with me, as was also insisted by Hana and Warren. Once I was sure that I've had everything, we rode away from Creek Mountain, on our way to the FBI's headquarters, which is in Texas. We could have taken the plane, but since I'm supposed to be someone trespassing governmental property, and therefor a terrorist, that would make me a liability to be let on a plane. So we're forced to take the car. Oh well, there isn't much that V has to say. As it appeared, though she's younger than me, she was even more of a cynic than I am. Altogether, since she's not talking much, that gives me some time to write in this journal, and to read in my book. The road to Texas will be long, so I suppose I'd have read much of the book by then.


	31. Chapter 31

We've ended up in a small town near Denver. I'd have loved to have seen the Mile-High City, but at this moment I have only five days to arrive at Cape Canaveral, bearing in mind that I'm to be tested whether I can survive certain gravitational forces. Also, it took me a while to get from Maine into Washington alone, so who knows how long it'll take to get back in Florida.

About this town in question... well, let's just say I'm not sure what to think of these people. I mean, not only is there snow here, while it's summer, the people here hardly ever look at each other directly when they're talking to each other. All they do is stand next to each other, then roll their eyes to the person they're talking to. They even talk like that to people who are behind them.

Then I haven't begun about their sense of entertainment. I mean, when V and I went into a diner to grab some food, there was this show on the diner's TV, in which two guys's idea of "funny" is that all they have to do is fart. The fact alone that people around here think that's funny is just another testament to how the human race is dumbing down. Admittedly, people back home think that "Ramon & Theo" are a bit old and obsolete to today's standards (whatever that's supposed to mean), but at least they try to be funny. About these two guys on TV, I'm not so sure of what they're trying to be.

V only just asked what it is that I'm writing. Didn't think she'd show much interest, but whatever. All I told her is that I wanted to keep a record of what's been going on during my trip. I also told her not to worry and that I'm very selective about what I'm writing.

Wednesday, July 30th 2008:

While still on our way to Texas, we came across another one of these cities that are guarded by the military. Given my earlier experiences in Raccoon City, I tried to convince V not to go through, but she either didn't listen, or did but didn't care. The city was called Willamette. When we arrived here, V made it clear to them that she's with the FBI... which didn't impress these guys at all. She tried to use me, by saying she's escorting me to HQ, and that this is the fastest way to get there (that latter bit wasn't lied), but they didn't care. That's when V gave up and just drove through the fences and into Willamette.

That's when V told me why she wasn't afraid to go through. Since I'm foreign, she didn't expect me to know, but it's been in the media that this town was overrun, and apparently still is, by zombies. In her own opinion, we have nothing to fear from a few slow dead people. I was pretty sure that the ones who died in Raccoon City would disagree with her.

With her car, she hit as many of these zombies as she could. Unfortunately, and I'm surprised she didn't know that, a moment will come that she'd hit one too many of these, which eventually broke down the car... at a very sticky situation. All we could use was a few blunt objects to keep these at a distance. We tried to find another car that actually worked, but we didn't have so much luck. It took us an entire day to get across the city, to get by the military, only to continue the rest of the way on foot.

So here we are in cheap motel. For monetary reasons, we didn't take a separate rooms, which means that we're to share the same room. Not so much comforting, especially from her end. She had to take a few days off from work, without pay, lost her car, only because some unidentified voices, claiming to belong to dead people, asked her to do so. In her situation, I'd probably feel the same way. But then... I'm just someone visiting the country, I didn't mean to cause this much trouble to anyone. It's like I've become a magnet for all the bad things around here. The best thing I could do was promise her that I'd pay her back for her car, one way or another. She didn't believe me at first, thought that once I'm back home I'll just forget about all this. One: If I wanted to forget about all this, I wouldn't be writing all this down. Two: She's a fed, therefor she can track me down if I don't keep my promise, so there's no way for me to escape from her. She didn't say anything to that, but at least she stopped raving on.

I know that I already have a girlfriend, but... I don't know, the only thing that Erica and I share is this special... bond, for a lack of better terms. But that's pretty much all that keeps us together, this one secret that she can't share with anyone else. But with V, it's somewhat different. I don't know what it is. Is it because she's the first one who doesn't act that nice to me? Is it because she and I share the same sense of cynicism? Or because we're both in an unwanted moment? Or maybe because she downright hates me, which makes her pretty much out of my reach? I don't know.

Why am I writing all this? More accurately, what am I thinking? It's always been hard for me to find someone, and I've already found her. Do I want to throw that away for some girl who hates me? Maybe I just miss Erica. That's probably it. First chance I've got, I've got to make contact with her.


	32. Chapter 32

Thursday, July 31st 2008

So we made it in Texas eventually. And I must say that this was the first time I met someone here in the US that I met someone I actually knew... sort of.

When V and I left the motel, we went as far as we could, where we found a car which could be hot-wired. That's a trick she could teach me, but she was still a little mad about this whole situation. I suppose I should respect her choice.

Anyway, when we crossed the border between Colorado and Texas, we got as far as the car could drive us. A moment came that this car ran out of gas, so we had to stop in the nearest station we could find. The station in question appeared abandoned. It even surprised me that it still had some gas for us to tank. I was to fill it up while V went to look for someone whom she would pay. Even five minutes after she was done, I didn't assume the worst. Who knows, the owner might not even live here, so it's possible that it'd take V a while to realize that there's nobody here. But after twenty minutes, I started to get worried.

I started to look around, but didn't find her. Instead, I found her cell-phone. As it appeared, she tried to call someone, but then something must have spooked her, so she dropped it. It was the only explanation I could think of, as she didn't seem to be either in the mood, or even the type to pull such a stupid prank, if it was a prank. In which case, what spooked her? Or who? Even worse, I only found her cell-phone, but not V herself. So where might she be? I tried to call someone, only to find out that this area doesn't make part of the network.

I had no other option but to look for her. This search eventually lead me to an old house. I don't know if it had something to do with earlier experiences, or with how the area looked, but I did sense this strange air around here. Anyone else would run away, and maybe they're right, but if I'm right, and there is something off about this area, then V must already be involved. Other people have already died, either because of me or I was just there when it happened, and I don't want to go through all that again. At least that's what I was thinking at the time, right now I remember that I still needed her. Subconsciously, that may have played a part, but I'm digressing again.

At some point, I heard a muffled scream and some kind of stampede. It must be V, in some kind of trouble. She's a fed, and she allows herself to end up in such trouble. Makes you wonder about some things, doesn't it?

So I entered the house, thereby drawing the attention of the V's assailant. And like I said, I knew this guy. I've seen enough documentaries about this guy to know who he is. A man with a chainsaw, wearing a mask made out of knit-together skins (of which I couldn't tell by looking, but I can guess what they were made of), who lives somewhere in Texas: Leatherface. Upon seeing me, he immediately chased me with his chainsaw. All I could think of doing was to throw as many things at him as I could at all even pick up. Unfortunately, his chainsaw was able to destroy much of the things I threw at him. Luckily, it had him distracted for just about long enough for me to find V's purse. Since she's a fed, I assumed she'd carry a gun. Unfortunately, if I'm to look for it, that would give Leatherface an opening, in which he could use his saw on me. That's when I decided to try and leave the house.

Once I was outside, it gave me a few seconds, which was enough for me empty the purse, so I could find the gun more easily. When I found it, I tried to use it on Leatherface. Unfortunately, I didn't have all the experience to use one, so I missed every shot. It didn't matter, as using the gun alone was enough to scare him. That's when he ran away, so I could sneak back into the house and help V. I found her tied to the table, which was still stained with blood from earlier victims. Seeing V like this, I did feel the urge to take a picture. I mean, her with all her training and everything, and yet it took just one man, who may still be a little cripple (though I haven't noticed much of it), to catch her off guard. Okay, some of the blood on the table was hers, as Leatherface did bump her on the head, causing her to bleed. But anyway, knowing that the gunshots won't keep him away for long, I freed V, and together we ran back to the car and got away at last. We stopped at nothing, not only to be sure that we weren't followed, but primarily (if I'm to believe V) so we wouldn't waste any more time. So if we would take it in turns to drive, as V felt a little weak with the bump on her head, and if we're lucky, we should be arriving in Dallas by midnight.

I don't, however, quite understood how Leatherface could still be standing here, as all my resources tell that he was hurt with his own chainsaw, after which a grenade was blown up, killing him along with a associate of his. Thinking about it, it is possible that the associate caught most of the blast. Plus maybe the chainsaw did damage him badly, but not enough to kill him. By now, he must have recovered from the attack. At least, that's my hypothesis.

Friday, August 1st 2008:

It took V a while, but she managed to recover from most of the blast, which gave her enough strength to drive the car instead of me, giving me some time to rest as well. So now it's much past midnight, but I don't feel much like sleeping.

V told me that when she entered the building, she could take care of things from here. She didn't seem quite grateful of me saving her, but I don't blame her. She probably believes that I only saved her because I still needed her to clear my name. If I were in her shoes, I probably would think the same. But I didn't care. As I see it, she had the choice to ignore Hana and her gang's orders, but she didn't. As I see it, since I now saved her life, we're even.

So anyway, if you want to know how I feel about Dallas: when I got here, I felt as though I was in Chicago again. I mean, many of the buildings I saw here resembled some of the buildings I saw there. But then, should that be so surprising? At some point in the nineties, an asteroid was on it's way to Earth. And although it was destroyed, whatever was left of the asteroid was still on a collision course to Earth, and all crashed in Dallas. My guess is that when they rebuild the city (not too far away from the crater that's left of old Dallas, so to avoid confusion) they thought of building some buildings from other cities here as well.

So anyway, since the car that V and I drove didn't belong to her or me, I decided to use it to continue my journey. It is still questionable whether I'd arrive in Cape Canaveral without any further incidents.


	33. Chapter 33

The car gave up on a very inconvenient time. Although I managed to get into Louisiana, I'm still too far away from the nearest airport. On foot, I managed to make it into a place called St-Francisville. I tried to find a place to spend the night, but there was no vacancy anywhere. Because of some book that was published a couple of years back, this town drew more tourists than ever before, particularly this Myrtle's Plantation, as that is where a part of the book took place. If I'm to believe the guy who wrote this, there was something hidden in the plantation (the legendary Soul Edge, of all things), that drew many things to this town. Among those things, ghosts are among them. Of course the book in question is fiction, but still it was enough to draw people here.

It's funny that I somehow overlooked this town when I made up I itinerary. Then again, after all things, I don't think I'd have had much time to explore this area anyhow, even if I planned to.

I managed to find this one plantation that didn't belong to anyone, so I don't think anyone would mind if I crashed down here. Wonder who this "Ellerslie" person was to whom this once belonged. I mean it is called "Ellerslie Plantation", so I assume this belonged to someone by that name.

As I'm writing this however, I do feel cold sometimes. Don't know why. I also thought I heard someone call my name, heard furniture being moved, and thought I saw a shadow. Guess I'm just seeing things, knowing that this town is known for it's ghosts. Not mention how exhausted I am, which helps me to stop thinking beyond the stories. It's possible there are indeed ghosts here, it's possible that it's another trick of my mind. If I immediately assume the former, that would be the day I lost my sanity forever, so I hope that I'm just seeing things.

Saturday, August 2nd 2008:

As I feared, I should've assumed the former. I woke up at some point during the night, feeling as though something was dragging me away. When I woke up, I got spooked to see... well, nothing actually, it was like something invisible was dragging me away. I could only just hold on to something, at which point that invisible something could no longer drag me away. Unfortunately, that didn't keep the doors from shutting themselves, or the lights from flickering. There was no doubt then that I was dealing with a ghost, perhaps even more than one. In a mirror, I saw something that looked like a illuminated rotten corpse, yet when I looked around, I didn't see anything, only in the mirror. Since the door had shut itself, and locked itself in the progress, I could only try to find something that would help destroy the door, so I can get through. Since I didn't want to see that zombie apparition anymore, I decided to use the mirror's frame. It was one of those old ones that used very strong wood, so there was only a danger of the mirror itself breaking, but not the frame. In the end, the door indeed broke, so I could get my stuff and get out. Okay, it wasn't that easy, as the front door, too, locked itself, so I had to break a window to get out.

I ran away from St-Francisville as fast as I could. I don't know how far I ran, until I finally met with this guy. I don't know why he was still awake this late at night, but then, am I not supposed to be asleep myself? He asked me the same question, but if I told him why I was awake, he probably won't be much help to get me out of the state. He did recognize that I was in a panic, so he decided not to ask me anything anymore, besides where I was going. He himself was headed back to his hometown in Arkansas, which isn't on my route, so he still wasn't of much help. But when I told him I was headed to Florida, he did promise to bring me to a friend of his, which is where we're headed right now.

If you're curious to know, this guy, who did tell me his name but doesn't want me to mention it here (either that, or not mention what he's told me about himself), he only helped me because he too has been running for the most part of his life. Mostly from the law. He therefor assumed that I must be doing the same. Though, he did seem to have something else in his mind as well, but he didn't want to tell me. My guess, with all the people I've met up to now, he too has met with someone, or something, in the same nature, but doesn't want to tell me. I tried to get him to tell me what it is, but he wouldn't spill. I suppose this should be a sign for me that I should stay out of Arkansas.

Okay, we arrived at his friend, who's now flying me to Florida. And I don't mean he's a pilot that's flying, I mean he's the machine that is flying. Seriously, when we arrived at a small airfield, that guy I described pointed me to his friend, but all I saw was an old helicopter. That's when the helicopter showed me his face. It's windshield has... I mean is it's eyes, and it's nose (or what people would describe as a helicopter's nose) is it's mouth. First, it'll drop that guy off in Arkansas, after which it'll take me to Florida. He was willing to do this for free, as he was planning to take some kind of vacation anyway, after helping that guy. Two birds with one stone, pardon the pun.

Now that I'm alone, having nothing else but the helicopter to talk to, he asked me if I'm looking forward to the race of the century. Although I told him I'm not interested in racing, he still wanted me to know about some race between one all-time champion, someone by the name of Herbie, versus some McQueen guy. And judging from the way he spoke of both of them, I don't think he was talking about humans but cars. Right now, I can only hope that we'll arrive in Florida pretty soon.

* * *

Note: the notion of Soul Edge being in St-Francisville is a reference to another story of mine, namely "Soul Caliur 2005"


	34. Chapter 34

Sunday, August 3rd 2008:

So I arrived in Cape Canaveral yesterday, where I was immediately put in a room, where I'm to spend the next few days, when they're testing me for outer space. Given what was in the room for recreational purposes, I was too tired to write all this down. Right now, it's still one hour before breakfast, so I suppose I could write this here down.

The room in question consists only of one bed, one TV with DVD-player and an old gaming-console (Atari, I think), and a cup-board, which had all the books and DVD's. Other than non-fiction books and documentaries about the outer space (mostly written by or about Arthur C. Clarke, for some reason), there were a few episodes of "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command", "Star Truck" and "Duck Dodgers of the 24th 1/2 Century". Honestly, it's not because this is a space-centre that all the fiction has to be space-related. It's like watching a movie on an airplane about an airplane crashing. The same goes with Atari-game, "Space Paranoids", the only game that can be played here. If those people I met at Celebrity Deathmatch (the Critic, the Nerd and their friends) they'll die if they see all this.

If you're wondering why I'm awake so far ahead of schedule, it's because a sound of music woke me up. In the room next to me, there's this girl with a guitar, playing some music. I don't think there'll be many people who'd appreciate this, me being one of them as it got me to lose about thirty minutes of sleep. But, thinking about it, if this girl is trying to be a musician, muck like I'm trying to be a writer, then she should play music everyday, just like I'm supposed to write every day. In other words, if I were to tell her to stop playing, I might as well have to stop writing myself, as I'm telling someone not to do something that I always do myself, namely practise.

Now that I've finished the tests, I must say that it's all very exhausting. Some tests I do understand, others... well, I don't know what they're for. The scientists own recreational purposes? See if we'd actually take those tests, when they're completely useless? I suppose, if you expect a person to lose his humanity, just because he's a scientist, you're dead wrong.

On the bright side, I did meet with some interesting people. One of them is called Sneyers, who happens to be from the same country as I am, originally. But judging from the fact that he isn't aware of the country's current political situation, he probably hasn't been home in a very long time. Didn't matter, as I finally met someone with whom I could use my native language, at last. He didn't tell me all the details as to why he left the country, having something to do with two girlfriends and the law is all he told me. In other words, it would be a little too complicated for me to understand anyway.

Another interesting person I met was that guitar-playing girl I mentioned. That girl was none other than Ana Free, who's on her way to perform a concert on the moon. The first artist to ever do that, for that matter one of the few female artists I find particularly good at making music. She's even accompanied by some people from that World Records Book, as she'd become the one artist to have performed as far away as she will be. I suppose I should thank that Arkansas guy and that helicopter for getting me here in time, as this is something I wouldn't want to miss for the world, literally.

I was just informed that I'm ready to go into space tomorrow. Finally some good news.

Which reminds me. I have only a few pages left to read from "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses". Which means that once I finished writing this, I should be able to finish reading this book, which I then should send this home through mail as well. Wonder if there's anyone still awake right now, to whom I can ask about this.

I didn't find anybody, but I did find a computer room, where I could use the internet. Knowing this, I checked my e-mails. Erica send me, again, more than one e-mail each day, but only two or three this time. Knowing the dangers of at all trying to leave Earth's atmosphere, I think I should at least send her a message. Of course what I told her is private, so I'm not going to mention what I told her here. But don't worry, if anything, I didn't forget to mention the time I spent with V, just so she'd know how much I miss her presence. I will tell you that... my only regret is, since I may not survive trying to fly to the moon, that I couldn't spend just one last moment with her.

If you're curious about Jess, she told me she found out how to transport herself to another dimension. In doing so, she realized she didn't actually went anywhere, it was just her mind, while her body remained safely where she is. She also found out about the existence of some kind of creature, which made her happy that she owns the book, so nobody else would (or rather could) awaken it. Of course, she's not going to do that herself. Thinking about it, is that why those wizards in Arkham were looking for it? Did they want to breath life into this creature? I don't think I'd want to know. I'm actually glad that Jess and I took the book away from them. This, I let her know through another mail. I also let her know (just like I did with Erica), that I may not reply to any of her next mails, so they should wait until I send them a mail to tell them I'm okay. If I don't any time soon, they should assume the worst.


	35. Chapter 35

Monday, August 4th 2008:

With the idea that some people might want to write something to their families before they leave, we were all allowed to send one thing to anybody. Be it a letter, be it something we want somebody else to have,... you name it. I only got one thing to send away, by mail that is, but I already got to say what I wanted to say to anyone, so I'm already covered. So anyway, I got to send "Ten Haunted Nights in Ten Haunted Houses" away before leaving, so I'm a few ounces lighter now to go to the moon.

From what I understand, this shuttle won't take me there directly. Rather, it would go to a space-station, where we're to take a so-called spaceplane, that would bring us to the moon. Altogether, it may take some time to get there. I guess this would give me some time to read that bible that I've got.

A few minutes ago, the shuttle launched itself into outer space. I can tell you that's a weird experience. It's one thing to take off in an airplane, but to be literally shot into space... that's an entirely different matter. Now I understand why some of these gravitational tests were needed, as I thought that they were exaggerating at times. Also, it's not so easy to be writing here, what with the lack of gravity in outer space and all. It wasn't easy to at all even take this journal and pen out, as other things I had in my bag would fly out as well. Once I put one thing back, two others came hovering out. They should have told me that I shouldn't try to take anything out while in space.

I got warned by the stewardess to put away my journal, and to wait until we arrive at the space-station, which I did. But I still thought I should at least be reading something while on route to the moon, so I still took out the bible. You wouldn't believe the reactions I got from some people aboard here. They see me reading "Thé Bible", and suddenly I'm a devout christian. They wouldn't even stop talking about how they feel about how godless some people were, or how bad it is that god is banned from the schools, for which they blame the school-violence that's been going on these past years. Normally, I'd think this is bullshit, when you think about it logically, but after what I've seen, I'm not so sure anymore. Still, if that's what people believe, that their god wouldn't protect those schools, even if there are still some christians at that school, it means that he's sacrificing his own people. What kind of a loving god is that?

In case you wonder, nothing happened after I even thought that. Doesn't surprise me, though. He's supposed to be watching people on Earth, and I'm in outer space, so he can't monitor any of my steps. This means that God isn't as all-seeing or all-knowing as people credit him to be. I guess he should give himself eyes on his back, so he can see beyond the Earth as well.

I've been on the moon for hours by now, and I must say, it's an even stranger experience to be here than anywhere else that I can imagine. The gravity here is so low, I can pick up objects that I wouldn't be able to on Earth. Also, taking one step here would count for eight (or more) steps on Earth. It takes some getting used to to even walk here.

Ana Free's concert is in half an hour, so I've got to write all this very quickly.

Seeing Earth from the moon... well, I thought it would be the same as seeing the moon from Earth, but it's not. For one, Earth is bigger, for another,... well I cannot really describe it. Imagine you're gone to some country, you don't expect to be able to see your own house from where you stand. Here, that's a little different. Okay, I can't actually see my house, but I can see the very lands where I live. It really gives me a weird feeling, knowing just that.

I also got confirmation that, indeed, you can see the Great Wall of China and the Truman-Studios from here.

If you're to listen to some of the employees here, you'd hear stranger tales. They say that every once in a while, they see something which they describe only as giants. At one point, it were two giant beetle-looking robots (one green, one yellow) who fought each other. At another time, there were three spaceships, of which one carried a white robot, that combined with one of the other two, to fight another giant, which they can't seem to identify. Other stories include seeing two things coming out of Earth's atmosphere, the one changes into a gun and destroys the other, then goes back. Not to mention that some claimed to have seen either some kind of a dragon which carried five other machines, or some kind of spaceship that carried four other ones inside it. In other words, it looked like Japan, USA, France and Great-Britain weren't the only places that had to deal with giant monsters.

I also came across this room, to which access from tourists was forbidden. When I asked some people, they were acting very weird about it. I remember to have heard something about a virus having run rampant here, some seven years ago. But that idea has been refuted by many people. It makes you wonder what they're doing here, for real.


	36. Chapter 36

Tuesday, August 5th 2008:

I only got my watch to know what day it is today, as I'm currently cut off from the civilisation I know. How that happened, well... Let's just say that it made my vacation, or at the very least the things I've seen on it, a lot weirder than it already was.

I was on my way to Ana Free's concert, when I was suddenly halted by... I think they were cops, at least their uniforms looked official. They were from an agency called T.E.C., which I've never heard of. Exactly how many more of those abbreviations are there out there? C.I.A., F.B.I., N.T.A.C., D.E.A., N.S.A., C.T.U., K.G.B., and now T.E.C.? I didn't get a chance to ask them where they were from, as they immediately asked me where I've hidden the time-machine. I'm serious, they asked me about a time-machine, but since I don't know anything about any time-machine, I couldn't answer them. With this celestial body's gravity, I was able to kick the guy who held me away from me, after which I decided to run. They did, however, search my bag, which held only one thing that appeared important to them: that USB-stick. I had the pleasure of seeing the military people's faces when they saw it only contained some Eighties' song, so although I wished I could see their faces, I didn't think I should stick around too long, so I ran.

I was lucky to have befriended Ana Free at the space-centre, as she was willing to help me escape from these T.E.C. people. What she did, was go to that room I mentioned, where she wanted to walk through, but the guards, of course didn't let her. That's when she started to complain, much like many celebrities would, about her being a celebrity and therefor deserving some kind of special treatment, etcetera. She didn't mean any of the things she said, she was just trying to distract the guards, so I'd have enough time to sneak into that room. For Ana's sake, I hope she stopped pretending to have a tantrum the second she saw me entering that room.

Inside the room, there was nothing special. Some kind of a huge black slab, which resembled one of those domino-rocks, but that's it. But there was a back door to that room, through which I could run away.

What happened then, I'm not sure, it all happened quite fast. I somehow tumbled into a hole, which brought me to a place... which is probably the one they're trying to cover up with that slab. The place in question looked as though there has been life here before, but for some reason that life's long gone. But unless I'm mistaking, I'm outside of the building that humans have set on the moon, so how come am I still breathing? But that wasn't the only thing that bothered me. The entire place was filled with what looked like remains from huge ant-like insects. What exactly lived inside the moon, and more importantly what caused it's demise. Whatever it was, it also seemed to have claimed the life of at least one human, as I also found the remains of one. It's just a guess, but maybe this man was so terrified of these bugs, he tried to destroy them, but accidentally killed himself in the progress as well. What impressed me the most is that he appeared to have been fleeing in the direction of some sort of sphere. Perhaps it was meant to be some kind of escape pod, but he didn't make it in time. I only know it is an escape pod as I went iside it, accidentally pressed the wrong button, causing it to shoot me from beneath the moon's surface back on Earth.

At least, I hope it's still Earth. Given the speed with which I went, I wouldn't be surprised if I somehow made it to another planet in some other solar system. But then, even with the speed of light it would take me four years to go to another solar-system, and also nobody survives travelling at that speed. I'm pretty sure I've crashed into the Earth's ocean. I must say, I can imagine travelling in that Aquila thing (which Tom Baxter always writes about in his books) to be a lot more comfortabel than travelling in the sphere. But I digress. I don't know how deep I went, but the pressure must have gotten me dellusional, as I could swear I saw a pine-apple at the bottom of the ocean. If there ever were one there, the sphere likely crashed on it, so it's probably gone by now. Luckely, I crashed into shallow waters, or else not only would I not have survived the pressure, I wouldn't have met that dolphin that brought me to the nearest land. The dolphin, I'll never forget this one, as it had four spots on it's face, that almost resembled the stars in the skies. You'd almost say it's the dolphin's version of a super-hero.

Now, the land in question, judging from it's tropical vegetation, I wasn't sure if would be safe for me to run through it's woods, looking for some kind of sign of civilisation, so I could only walk through the beach, hoping to bump in on something eventually. Turns out, I'm on an island, and the only thing that made it look civilised was some dock, which obviously hasn't been used in years, it even looked as though some kind of animal has torn it apart. When I realized this is an island, I hoped that it's the same one where the Oceanic Six had stayed, as they somehow managed to survive on it, but seeing this... I'm not so sure anymore.

On the other hand, this place does provide some kind of shelter, where I could dry up all my clothes. It's been a real drag to get all my wet stuff here, likely because it was all drenched, for one, and I still had to get used to Earth's gravity. But I managed. I should consider myself lucky to have even bought that waterproof bag in New York, or else my journal was drenched as well, along with the lighter and ballpoint I kept in it. That lighter became especially useful for me to make a fire for the night.

The Bible I had was drenched as well, so I can't read the rest of it. Not that it matters. As a text, it's the one book I wouldn't recommend anyone to read, but as a centrepiece of Christian mythology, it was quite interesting. I mean, the Christian god for some reason kept bragging about himself, saying how he created Earth, how much he loved the people, so it pained him to kill them all. Although... given his explicit explanation as to how he killed them, I'm not so sure he actually did regret any of that. I don't know how people can read this and think of him to be all-loving. I for one feel as though I'm reading Hynkel's "Mein Kampf" rather than anything else. I don't know why that-guy-who-thinks-he's-god wanted me to find this, unless he only said he was god to be sure I'd listen. For all I know, he might as well just be another one of those psychics who wanted me to know the whole truth, and helped me to get there. I didn't get any wiser, unless you want to count "knowing what the Bible is truly about" as a way in which I got wiser.

* * *

Note: should you wonder, in the "League" universe, Hynkel (from "The Great Dictator") is the one who lead the Nazis way back when, not Hitler.


	37. Chapter 37

Wednesday, August 6th 2008:

I stayed in a cave the whole night, hiding from what's on this island. If I didn't see it myself, I wouldn't have believed it myself. But I did meet with one of the island's residents.

How it found me, I can only guess. Perhaps it smelled the fire I made, or perhaps I'm hurt somewhere on my body where I can't see it, so it smelled my blood. I don't know how, but it did. I was asleep, when some kind of loud roar woke me up. At first I thought was just the wind howling. That is until I felt a small quake, followed by another, and another. I don't know much about earthquakes, but I do know that they come at once, not one bit at the time. So whatever caused this, it's not natural. Slowly I opened my eyes, and before me there was a huge lizard, standing on two of it's hind legs. It didn't seem to notice me at first, but I didn't dare to move one muscle. Unless my knowledge of paleonthology fails on me, that thing was a Tyrannosaurus. Which is weird considering that that's supposed to be extinct for millions of years. But come to think of it, wasn't there a situation somewhere in California once where a dinosaur was unleashed? That happened many years ago, so I don't remember all the details. Could this possibly be the same one?

Once it had turned away from me, I slowly got up, tried to make my way out. Unfortunately, it heard me making a branch snap, so it immediately turned back to me. I don't know how I was even able to think at a time like this. Running into the woods would have been a smart thing to do, knowing that there wouldn't be enough space for it to move through. But knowing that there may be worse in there, I couldn't bring myself to go in. This allowed the Tyrannosaurus to run to me. With it's huge size, it wasn't able to move fast enough to catch me, when I decided to roll between it's legs. That's when my swiss knife came in handy. I took it out of my pocket and stabbed it into one of it's toes. With this, I could run away from it, as the wound slowed it down. Unfortunately, it reacted too fast for me to remove the knife before I ran away, so now I'm unarmed against anything else that may or may not be on this island.

Some people would cry themselves to sleep, I however scared myself to sleep in that cave. Before I started writing in this journal, I got out to go back to that place where I was attacked. I would look like the Tyrannosaurus has destroyed many of my belongings, which are mostly clothes, but that can be replaced, provided that I get off this island. But I'm lucky that at least this journal survived the attack.

I have no idea of how long it's been since I heard another roar. It sounded like that Tyrannosaurus's, but not like it did the other night. It sounded like something was wrong. I went to check it out, and noticed it was surrounded by... raptors, I think they're called, but I'm not sure. What I do know for sure is that with one weak Tyrannosaurus, they'd have no problem tearing it apart. I know, it tried to eat me the other night, but I merely defended myself, and it's my defense that weakened it, making it an easy target for other predators. Altogether, it's my fault that this thing will be killed, so it should be me who'd help it. I didn't know how to do that, but then one of the raptors spotted me, so there was no time for me to plan anything. I ran away from it, only to bump in on a herd of Stegosauruses. Given their huge size, when compared with raptors, the one that chased me ran away scared. This gave me an idea. I tried to piss off the herd (which wasn't all that difficult, all I had to do was show myself to them), which got them to follow me, to the Tyrannosaurus. Or at least close enough to scare the raptors away.

With the Tyrannosaurus now left alone... well there wasn't much that I could do. What I did do was take the Swiss knife out of it's toe, drag one of the raptors that the Stegosauruses killed to him, so both of us would have something to eat. It was a little reluctant to accept my help, but it knew it had no other choice. It probably never heard of Androcles and the lion, but I think that we are now part of a similar story. I only hope that it would be thankful enough to not wanna eat me once it's toe is healed.

Thursday, August 7th 2008:

Apparently, my launch from the moon and re-entry into Earth's atmosphere didn't go unnoticed. Last night, helicopters came to find me. That is, somebody has seen something, then went to look for it, saw that somebody had started a fire on the island, but needed to do all the necessary paperwork, needed to contact all the right people, among other things, only so I could be picked up to be asked about what I may or may not have seen from what crashed. I didn't tell them that it was me, for reasons I'll explain later, I only told them that I was on a stow-away on a boat, headed towards Australia, but when I was discovered, they threw me out of the ship.

Why I didn't tell them about the sphere? I have two reasons. One, they killed the Tyrannosaur. It was harmless, it lay still, it wasn't doing anything at all, yet they were convinced it was attacking me. Who are "they"? That would be the second reason I'm not entirely honest with them. They belong to the Family. Yes, I'm serious. Those people who were born as vampires, or some form of them, believing themselves to be sent by God to serve humanity. My mother even joined this family, back when it was just called the Brotherhood, but left it for "the one true religion", which ever she believes that one to be right now. From what I heard of these people, they never were such great helps. They were even responsible for the release of many viruses on this planet. From what I even overheard some people talking about, they even keep samples from that rage-virus (that nearly wiped out all of Great-Britain), the dead-virus that's similar to the former (that nearly wiped out the whole world), some advanced form of rabies (that raged in Spain), I even saw them keep a dog that looked like a sheep (or is it a sheep that looks like a dog?). I say "they collect samples", but to literally translate what we'd say in my native language, I'd say the Family collects monsters.

Anyway, so I'm at their convent, which is somewhere in Jamestown, New-Zeeland. That is, if they are telling me the truth, which can never really be said about religious fanatics. OK, I'm not particularly honest with them either, but who knows what they'd do with the knowledge that I have. I'm pretty sure it's in everybody's best interest if I don't tell them what I know.


	38. Chapter 38

Friday, August 8th 2008:

I met with this one member of the Family, who knew that I was kept for reasons other than what they were telling me. In light of that, she decided to help me out of their convent. She gave me enough money to buy new clothes, and a plane-ticket that would take me to Sydney, Australia. She also told me that I shouldn't mention her anywhere. I suppose that means she's another name I must not mention in this journal. But you know, it does look like every religion has it's own rogue agent. You have that "el Barto" from Scientology, Marco from the 4400, and now this woman from the Family (who claimed to be over forty, when she didn't look any older than twenty).

Anyway, so I'm now in the plane, headed towards Sydney. On my way to the airport, I managed to catch the news that two giant robots appeared in New York. Now that got me boiled up. So I've seen those dinosaurs on Isla Sorna (as I was told that island was called), but there have been monsters on this planet before that were ten times (if not more) larger than even the largest one on that island. I would have taken pleasure out of seeing a living dinosaur (a lot more if it didn't try to eat me), but knowing that much larger one exists, and the ones in New York were larger,... well, you can understand that bit of my frustration.

Now, I have arrived in Sydney. I don't know much about what's to see here, but I'm sure that now that I'm here I'll find something interesting.

There's this one building here, which reminded me of a scale model of water-waves. I don't know how best to describe it, but I never knew what it is either, until now. It's supposed to be an opera-house. To European standards, that's not what you'd expect an opera-house to look like, but then Australia is an colonised island, or continent, it has been for the better part of the past few centuries. Can't expect it to be an old building on a relatively new land, can I?

While here, I also came across reporters from CNNNN. Funny, as I never heard of that channel until I ended up in Maryland, and suddenly I meet someone who works for it. I must say, the meet with these people was at least more pleasant than when I met that Faux reporter. Come to think of it, my stay here has been without many, if any incidents. Very much unlike my stay in the States. There isn't much that I know about Australia, nor anything I really want to see, but if things stay the way they do right now, I'm sure that I'll stay here, to borrow from what I heard people say, "a wee bit" longer.

In my hotel, I met with a group of people who claim to be from a place called Sandy Bay. To me, the name of that place meant nothing, but there was something that I overheard them talking about that got my interest. Apparently, they were headed to a place called Prehistoric Park. After that museum in Montana and Isla Sorna, I've had all the prehistoric feed that I needed, but this one guy, Tobey as his friends kept calling them, claimed to have invented this machine that made the building of that park possible. He didn't appear much older than me, or any more eccentric than I always imagine an inventor to be, I therefor wondered if this guy is serious. Out of plain curiosity, I asked that Tobey what that invention may be. He didn't tell me. Instead, he told me that I should come to that park, so I'd see for myself. Upon telling them I wouldn't know where to go, he and his friends offered to take me along with the ride. Well, I suppose it's nothing I haven't seen before, but still it'd be nice to make friends with some of the natives around here as well.

Additionally, I send mails to Erica and Jess, tell them that I've returned from my trip to the moon, so they need not worry about anything. I can only hope that those T.E.C. people didn't try to make contact with them, so they'd track me. I also received a message from Hana. She said that T.E.C. was an agency to which she and her little league had no access, but since they got that USB-stick from me, and here I quote: "they inadvertently downloaded Tron into their systems". In doing so, not only did they find out that I didn't have the time-machine on me, as I apparently originally did, so I was no danger to anyone, or even not so important anymore. Still, I'm a human life that's to be left alone, as well as the people close to me. Because I helped them hack into the government's most secure systems, they even helped the ones close to me to be left alone. That's all well, but I still don't understand what got anyone to think I even had a time-machine with me. Unless that stupid little mechanical thing I found in England was a time-machine, but I doubt it. Then again, now that I think about it, if that thing was indeed a time-machine, then that would explain how those T.E.C. people knew I had it, as it was examined when I was going through customs in Florida. Still, those are mere guesses. I'm sure it wouldn't have been a stupid question when I asked Hana at what point I even had a time-machine.

Saturday, August 9th 2008:

Right now, I am on my way to Prehistoric Park. I must say that this park must be located more deeply into the lands, as we've been driving for hours. Meanwhile, I got to hear the names of Tobey's friends as well. There's his girlfriend Dina, his best friend Russ, and his cousin (and Russ's girlfriend) Sacha. From their conversations, I am to understand that there's this other girl, Elizabeth, who tried to invent some things as well, but only for personal gain. In the world as it is, that doesn't particularly surprise me. But anyway, it was Tobey's invention that's now used to make the world a better place, not Elizabeth's. Tobey, unlike his friends, is a little modest about that, and I don't blame him. Only a narcist would believe of himself that he truly changed the world. One needs his/her friends and/or family to tell him. But that's just my opinion.

I really wonder what that invention is. A more powerful version of holographic projections? I mean, I heard of such things, but right now it's still to obviously unreal. It still looks like those CGI effects you see in the movies. When I asked that, particularly Russ seemed to think that was funny. But when Sacha mentioned the incident in San Francisco after a similar attempt for an amusement park was made, it got me a little weary. She mentioned San Francisco, which is California. When on Isla Sorna, I remembered an incident in which a Tyrannosaurus was running rampant in California. Is she referring to the same incident? If so, does that mean that I'm in on something like back on Isla Sorna?


	39. Chapter 39

Sunday, August 10th 2008:

I'll try to tell you the events as I remember them to have happened. It's funny that my watch tells me it's Sunday, although I feel as though whatever happened from that one moment in Prehistoric Park up until now, it all happened in a few days, weeks, months even. I can only speculate as to why that is.

As it turned out, Tobey, whom I mentioned the other day, invented a sort of time-portal, which allowed some people to back in time, to save some prehistoric animals on the brink of extinction. In other words, prehistoric animals (of which I recognized a mammoth, some sabre-tooth cats, a hairy rhino, a Triceratops, some huge bugs, a herd of Titanosauruses and two Tyrannosauruses) who were about to die at the moment they were found, were saved from certain death. Tobey, who invented the machine that made it all possible, was allowed to be the test-visitor, along with his friends (which since recently has me on that list), and a security agent, who simply referred to himself as X-19, and no other name. By the way, that agent hardly even looked older than either me or Tobey and his friends, and that's supposed to be an agent?

But I digress. Much like that park that they tried to built a few years back, something went wrong around here too. I don't know what happened, exept that a huge crocodile (I'd say it was ten to twenty times larger than today's crocodiles) escaped. I also remember that was the last thing I saw, just before I saw the opening of it's mouth, and everything turned black.

Yes, I died. There's no point in denying it. When my eyes opened, I saw a place where you were supposed to take a number and wait your turn. Among the ones waiting, was a guy that looked very much like a clown, but his head was shrunken for some reason. Also, he was the only one of whom I couldn't tell how he died. Looking at myself, I could see the bite-marks that the crocodile left on me, but not with this guy. Anyway, this wasn't a place where I wanted to wait.

Moving away, I found a room, similar to a doctor's waiting room. Waiting here did not take long, as a man entered, of whom I can only assume it was Saint-Peter. He didn't tell me his name, but that didn't matter. He brought me before God himself. I didn't see him at first, but then he started to take some forms. At first he turned into a cloud with a face, a beard, and wearing a crown. I laughed at the sight of that, which only made him angry, and create a thunderstorm. I thought it to be every cliché in the book, which again made him angry. Then he tried taking different forms. Among those forms I recognized Adam Susan, Adenoid Hynkel (big surprise), two men who are best known under the name "Big Brother", Charles Logan, a bunch of Middle-Eastern people (some of whom I remember to be terrorists),... I expected him to change into my parents at some point, but he didn't. Maybe because they're still alive, I don't know. In any case, he decided to take the form as to how a comedian from my home-country described him: dressed like a Roman emperor, white beard, white toga, brown sandals, red coat, black... hat, I should say. And that's the form that he kept.

In this form, he asked me to tell him why I had to torment him. I didn't know what he was talking about, so he explained that I kept saying bad thing about him, and even kept doing so after he, and he claims, warned me. I'd say after he tried to kill me, but whatever. I broke the commandments "honor one god alone", "honor your parents", and "do not lie". He wanted me to explain myself to him. This threw me off. I mean, isn't God supposed to be alknowing? Therefor, shouldn't he know why I did what I did? If so, why do I need to explain myself?

Strike one.

When I asked him that, all he could say was: "Because I created the world, I am the father of all..." and similar not so convincing things, "... and I tell you to explain all your actions." I'd love to tell him exactly why, except... I wasn't not the only one present, guilty of any crime. If you ask me, the father of all, who decides over who lives and who dies, who's responsible for the flood that killed many people, who caused the downfall of big cities, who assigned people to kill each other (inquisition, crusades, 9/11,...), who created diseases like the black plague, or even AIDS,... all that and more, and he demands of ME to explain all my petty acts?

Strike two.

Unless he explains his actions to me, and the rest of the world first, I see no reason why I should explain my actions to him. That's exactly what I told him. He went even redder than a tomato could possibly look. An impressive sight to behold, I must say, but I've seen enough cartoons, where such a sight always but a smile on my face, so I wasn't at all intimidated, if that was the point. He noticed, so he tried a different approach. He knew, of course, that I read "The Bible", so I therefor must have read how much it pains him to have to send people to hell. Upon hearing that, I told him: "Then stop sending people down there." Seriously, if he doesn't want to do it, then don't do it. But then he told me that he has no choice. I laughed at that notion. God himself has no choice? What does that mean? Is there someone watching over him? Someone telling him what he must do, how and why? Then all this means that the god that the whole world worships is just a sissy. He's not almighty at all. After telling him that, he became angry again, and told me that he has no choice because he has to stay true to his own rules. He's right about one thing, though. What kind of a leader would he be if he breaks the rules that his followers must follow. But then, if this guy is responsible for the deaths of billions of people, then he broke the commandment of "do not kill". Conclusion, God is not a sissy, he's a dictator. By meeting him in person, I now have confirmation. Well then, more than he wanted, he explained his actions to me, so honesty's sake, I explained mine to him: I do not support dictators.

Strike three. God's out of the game.

I must say, God's a sore loser, as he still sent me to hell. Didn't matter to me. If being in heaven is in any way like being a religious person on Earth (where you're mentally tortured until you see their god as the one true entity to worship, and even after that they still torture you), then heaven is the real hell. In actual hell, all that happens is physical torture (how that was even possible without a physical body, I still don't know). But physical pain is something you get used to, to a point you might actually enjoy what they're doing to you. In short, hell is not that bad a place. The only reason some people are upset about being here is because they keep telling themselves they should've been in heaven. I tried to make them feel better by telling them what I think, but that only got them to turn against me. I'm used to people hating me for whatever reason, so hell started to feel very much like home.

Unfortunately, the devil realized this in time, so he went back to heaven's gates with me, trying to convince God to allow my entrance into heaven, as that's where I'll really suffer. Of course God refused, as that would mean he has to make an exception, which he can't do. They tried to think of other places where I can still suffer for my (petty and forgivable) acts. They thought of Valhalla, as I don't have the physical strength to fight there forever, but if I diserved Valhalla, a Valkyr would have claimed me already, so that was out of the question. They then decided for the Greek underworld, but that one's still too much like hell. For some reason, even Venus (the planet) was mentioned.

In any case, while they were arguing, I decided to sneak away. They spotted my sneaking away, but it was too late for them to do anything, as suddenly a giant appeared. The giant in question, not only did it look quite familiar, it looked like a man in some kind of dragon-armor, riding a Titanosaurus. By the way, is it me or have I seen more dinosaurs in the past week then I ever did in all the dinosaur-movies I've seen in my life altogether? Anyway, he wasn't alone. Along with him was a giant lady, who appeared to be carrying a sort of magic wand. Along with the dinosaur-man was a group of five youngsters, who battled God, and along with the woman there were four... I don't know what were (though one of them was human), who battled the devil. When they knew they were defeated, they turned into giants, in which form they were beaten by the other two giants.

While the giants were fighting, those of human size came to me and helped me to get away. The ones that were with that dinosaur-man said they were called Zyurangers, and the ones with that woman said they were heavenly saints from Magitopia, except for that one human I mentioned, a girl dressed in blue, who said she's a Magiranger, who married one of the heavenly saints. Zyuranger, Magiranger,... how many kinds of rangers are there? So anyway, they told me that they wanted to take down God a long time ago, yet if that happens, the devil would seize power, and then he'd be unstoppable. The only way in which they could be beaten is when they were both at the same place at the same time. I, apparently, made that possible. But then, I did have some help. That help showed himself. It was that astronaut I remember to have seen in my dream, Bowman he said his name was. He was accompanied by an ant-eater, who called itself Antubis (Anubis in ant-eater form?). Anyway, as I tried to help a Tyrannosaur, despite the fact it wanted to eat me, I earned the respect of the Zyurangers' own god, Daizyujin (don't ask how I at all even know how to spell that name). I also earned Magitopia's Magiel (as that giant woman was called) her respect. For all this, I earned myself a place in their heavens. Just like that, I asked them. Indeed, as everything I did was because I did what I thought was right, not what someone or something else told me to be right. Everything I did was selfless, I didn't care if anyone would reward me. Even if I didn't help them pin down God and the devil, they still would have helped me. Still... there are some things that I want to experience, which I can't when I'm dead. Plus, I still got a trip to finish. They understood, so with the combined efforts of Antubis, Bowman, Magiel and Daizyujin, I was brought back to life. I did, however, request to them to not be brought back to life in Prehistoric Park, or at all even in Australia, as I think I may upset some people, whom do not deserve that. They understood, so they brought my body back together, healed my wounds, put my mind back in my body, and dropped me off here... wherever here may be.

They were generous enough to allow me to have all my stuff with me as well. My backpack, with all my clothes, my Swiss knife, and above all: my journal. I also woke up with a peculiar cell-phone in my hands. After some examination, I realized that this phone served as a wand as well. According to a text message it had, it would answer all my courage with magic. When I looked at it's batteries, I saw that all it had was something that looked like a medallion, which bore the image of a Tyrannosaurus on it. I suppose having a cell-phone of my own, without the interference of any company, would be cheaper, safer, and when it shows it's magic, quite handy. But now my hand's tired of all the writing, so I'd better explore where it is that they dropped me off.


	40. Chapter 40

Monday, August 11th 2008:

I should have seen this coming. The Zyurangers, that one Magiranger and that Magiel, they all looked Asian, but they spoke my language pretty well. I didn't question that, probably because we were all in the realm of the dead, where the rules may not be the same as in the realm of the living. But anyway, despite their Asian looks, I didn't anticipate that, of all places, they'd drop me off in Japan. The one dangerous area for me, a Westerner, to be, and they decided to drop me off here.

When I decided to leave that alley where I was dropped off, I tried to recognize the surrounding area. There were only Asians in the immediate vicinity, and all the arrows and signs were in Oriental kanji. I had to hear some people say things like "konichi wa" and "arigato" to know that I'm in Japan. I tried to talk to the people, but they either hardly understood me, or I couldn't make out a word they said, or in the worst cases they felt threatened by my approach. I was lucky to find a pizza-place around here, where the owners have some knowledge of English. The owners in question, were Italian, and despite them owning a pizza-place, they were always dressed for an other type of work (carpentering, plumbing, I don't know). The only reason they are at all accepted in this country is because they speak the local language quite well.

The night wasn't exactly a quiet one either. At a time I saw someone who wore some kind of belt, that would allow him to transform into some kind of dark... vampiristic thing. Sorry, I don't know how else to describe him. There were even moments that I thought to have seen similar ones in the mirrors, while I didn't see anything that would cast such reflections. It was all so weird, I decided to go to sleep, immediately after those Italian guys offered me a place to sleep. By the way, now that I think of it, the owners were brothers, called Mario and Luigi Jumpman. Their first names are Italian, not so sure about that last name, though.

But anyway, they told me that there may be an easier way out of Japan. All I have to do was go into this pipe they've got in their cellar, keep going straight on, and I'll end up somewhere eventually. They didn't tell me where exactly, but they did give me a bag of things (a feather, a star with a face, a flower, a puppet frog, raccoon and soldier) which may come in handy while down there. So either I go through Japan and risk certain death, or I go down to Terra Incognita and risk a fate unknown. And why did I think of using such words? Anyway, I'd much rather risk going through Japan than going through a place that they wouldn't want to describe in detail. But they were at least generous enough to give me a map, so I'd know where I am.

So anyway, I'm somewhere in a place called Shibuya, if I'm not mistaken, having finished eating something called "menchikatsu" (I asked someone to write it down for me). I'm not sure of how I should describe it's taste. But after seeing the things I've seen, I could eat anything. I saw people carrying around balls that contained monsters, I saw kids accompanied by monsters (which unlike the former ones could talk), I spotted people like that vampire thing I saw before, except that they changed into something that resembled grasshoppers, not to mention the giant monsters I saw. At one point it was a giant robot, fought by another one that were giant police-vehicles at first, combining into one giant robot, where I couldn't help but notice it was marked with the letters S.P.D. for some reason (after CIA, FBI, TEC and others, now SPD). At another, I saw other vehicles that had faces of animals, fighting something that heavily polluted the air, by the looks of it. Not to mention that I spotted something else, that looked like a lizard, that was fought by something that looked as though it was human-sized at first but grew into something larger. I know, I always wanted to see giant monsters, but seeing so many of them in one day, it's a little too much. If that wasn't bad enough, I saw a young couple, using some kind of device on their knuckles to change into armored people. They sort of reminded me of those people that attacked me back in California. That's when it hit me. I remember to have seen people like them before, and I was right. In the better part of the past thirty years, I've seen people like those on the news, and always were they in or around Japan.

Meanwhile, as I was writing that last sentence, I saw something flying in the skies. It looked like very tall pale man, dressed in black, with bat-like wings, who did seemed to stick around this guy. Funniest bit is that I seemed to be the only one seeing it. Why doesn't anyone else? Or does nobody else care anymore, as monsters appear to be mundane around here?

One way or another, I ended up in the woods, where a group of other colorful people (who weren't in spandex suits, or at least not when I first met them), who seemed to recognize my need for adventure. Don't know where that idea comes from. I mean, all they see is a man with a backpack, a Swiss knife and a journal, and I for one wouldn't say that I'm looking for adventure, as I wouldn't even dare to venture into a pipe in the cellar. I was lucky that at least two of them knew English, so I could tell them that I'm just a tourist travelling around the world. That they noticed, which is why they thought I'm looking for adventure. So anyway, they offered to help me, by allowing me to stay in a room of theirs. That room is in the SGS museum. Funny, as I didn't know that SGS was invested in Japan as well. But anyway, if they say that adventure is more my thing than anything else, then I know what I should do. I mean, I've always been in a factory, taking care of dirt, while there's more in the world than a stupid factory. When I return home, I'll quit my job and try to get a job at SGS.


	41. Chapter 41

Tuesday, August 12th 2008:

After I woke up, I asked the people here at SGS, whether they could put up a good word for me to SGS in Europe, as they are after all the ones who recognized my need for adventure. They agreed, so I could leave them without further ado.

Okay, that's not entirely accurate. That one girl in their group appeared so excited over my presence (as though she never met with a westerner before), she even tried to talk to me about some J-pop artists she likes listening to. I needed the other ones to translate what she was saying to me. I remember her talking about somebody called Minako (I think it was) and a Nanami (which I actually do remember). Never heard of either of them, and I still don't have any immediate intention to get to know them. At the time I said that, there was this guy cleaning the windows, who overheard me talking. The guy in question wore something around his wrist that for some reason got me to think of ninjas, don't know why. What was weirder, is that he got infuriated by me mentioning that I don't want to know this Nanami girl. This was one hard-core fan.

It's beginning to become a bit of a habit of mine to get arrested at all the inconvenient times. Given this governments hatred against the West, I shouldn't be surprised this would happen. But then, even if I were Asian, they still would have arrested me. I mean, a guy who just enters Japan, without any means of transport, without a stamp on his passport and all things related... they wanted to know how I got here. I couldn't give them any answer, which didn't put the odds in my favor. It wasn't long before people from SPD came to investigate the matter further. They claimed to have a much more open mind than the regular police forces, as they deal with special cases every day. Hence even the name Special Police Detectives (SPD for short). Unfortunately, even then, I couldn't tell them much. But as it turns out, their boss (who looked like a blue, human-sized dog) seemed to recognize my cell-phone (the one that Magiel gave me) so he decided that I should be let go. But while he was at it, he thought of adding my number into their systems, and allow me access to their archives. When I asked him why, he said that he got a call from someone, who explained to him what I've gone through, how I dealt with it, and just how valuable I can be when it comes right to it. If ever I should say I have a guardian angel, it would be Hana, who again helped me out of this situation.

Should you wonder, she called me shortly after I left SPD's building, or Dekabase as they call it. I asked her why she keeps helping me. She told me she felt she should have been more honest with me from the beginning, and felt that she used me,... among other things. She believed she owed me something, as she felt that after what she and her friends have done, she wasn't that much different from those she tries to fight. If you ask me, I hope she'll stop doing me any more favors. I mean, it's a little scary to be helped by somebody whom I've never met.

Now that I was using the phone anyway, I wondered if there was any way I could use it to check my mails. I can, but I didn't use it just yet. I thought I should find a place to sit down for a moment. Not only to write all this down, but also just to rest.

As it seems, Erica has returned to her New England home, having won the chess-tournament finales, again. She wishes to know when I'll be back home, and where I live, so she could visit me. I told her that I don't know, but I'll let her know when she can visit me as soon as I return home. She'll probably be the first to hear all my stories, before I decide to put this journal on the net, for all of you to read.

Wednesday, August 13th 2008:

Remember that place that those Italian brothers were about to send me to? Well, I ended up taking that route. Why, you wonder?

I was sitting down, minding my own business, when suddenly a firetruck was driving through, chasing some kind of dragon, of which the back of it's tail was burning. As soon as the truck realized it couldn't catch it (I'm not kidding) it transformed into a robot and tried to catch it as thus. On top of that, since we were close to the woods, there were some animals that weren't so pleased with the noise that that truck-robot kept making. First I heard a roar, then I saw who, or what caused it. There was a guy wearing a black leather suit, accompanied by a girl with her hair in spiral pig-tails, both of whom changed their appearance into... well, the guy's suit resembled a lion, and the girl's resembled a chameleon's. I didn't know what all this was about, but I didn't stick around to find out either. I ran away, only to fall into a hole. Better down there than up there, I thought to myself, so I proceeded.

It wasn't until I met with sewer turtles, crabs and huge flies (I'm dead serious) that I remembered what the Italian told me. I almost wished I had taken that bag they gave me. I don't know what to do with it's contents, but now that I don't have it I'll never find out either.

The further I went down, the weirder things started to look. A moment came in which I saw blocks hanging in the air, branded with question marks, where I couldn't turn my back away or I'd have a ghost following me, and from every other pipe a flesh-eating plant would emerge. And believe it or not, but a little guy with a mushroom-head was the one that helped me out. He didn't know any language I understood, but he got me to blow this whistle, which instantly transported me out of here and... well, I have no idea where I am now.

Oh well, wherever I ended up, I looked for a cozy place to sleep, and stayed there the rest of the night. Now that it's morning, I'll hopefully get any wiser.


	42. Chapter 42

I'm still in Asia, but not in Japan. Blowing that whistle somehow got me into Hong Kong. I know, as the kanji I saw was significantly different from what I saw in Japan, and everyone laughed when I said "konichi wa", which is not Cantonese. It also took a while before someone actually told me why that was funny (and thereby told me where I was). So anyway, when I realized that I was brought this far, I wondered if that whistle could take me back home. But when that thought crossed my mind, I realized the whistle was gone, as though it could be used only once.

My stay here hasn't been all that uninteresting, however. Much like those car-chases and/or killers in the States, or the monsters in Japan, this particular area seemed to be constantly have people using their martial arts against each other. It looks to me that every country has their own... special things (I don't know how else to call it). I wonder what it is that makes my home-country special.

Anyway, after some long walk, I ran into this street, where some guy, about the same age as me, was demonstrating some of his own martial artistic moves to some people passing by, and sometimes even fight with them. By the way, is it me or do all those people look very much alike? Anyway, after watching that guy beating the crap out of them, I asked what it was he did exactly. Unfortunately, he didn't speak any language I know, and some of the time a language nobody else knew either. Still, with however little the nearest person could translate for me, it turned out he was doing something called "jyuken", or "beastfist" in English. Never heard of it, but it seemed interesting. Wonder if there are beastfist-masters in Europe as well, particularly in my own country.

It's funny, I mean from what I heard about this area, the so-called Republic of Greater East Asia, they have this grudge against the western world, particularly America, and yet more people seem know English, not to mention that they are very nice to me, a westerner. Perhaps, much like I am with my own government, these people aren't too pleased with their own leaders. Out of curiosity, I asked them about this, and they acknowledged that their leaders indeed tell them that we, westerners, are enemies, but by meeting people like me, they choose to believe otherwise. Additionally, I told them, by means of example, that I've been in Japan, which got some of them to look a little spooked. They told me that I'm lucky that this... Kira, I think they called him, didn't get to me. I don't know all the details, but this Kira character could cause people to have heart-attacks, without even doing anything to them, or even being anywhere near his victims. And I thought that those monsters were dangerous.

Thursday, August 14th 2008:

Tamara, Marco, that whistle, now somebody that calls himself a "jumper". All of the aforementioned are people or things that have transported me to other places, faster than you can say "it".

But I'm running ahead of things. After walking through Hong Kong a little more, I ran in on this guy, who did something... I'm not sure what it is, but suddenly I was in Egypt, on top of the Sphinx, only to be transported to a flowery area. Whoever this guy was, why he went to Egypt before ending up here, or how he did all this, I don't know. All he told me is that he's running from people who hate jumpers. I can only guess that, as he somehow transports himself from one place to another, or "jumps" from one place to another, he is what he calls a jumper.

I must say, that this area alone does have some serene air about it, so it doesn't surprise me that this jumper would come here every so often. These flowers I mentioned, I'm no botanist, but I believe they're called amaranth, otherwisely known as the flower that never withers. I don't know why, but it got me to think. It's a fact that women want their men to give her flowers, but they die a little too easily. If giving flowers to your beloved is supposed to show your love for her, it symbolically would mean that your love would die soon. But giving some of these amaranth ones... I think I may know a way to surprise Erica, next time I see her.

Okay, I couldn't wait that long, I just made a picture and send it to her. It made me wonder why I didn't bother to take a camera with me before I left. If it wasn't for Magiel, I wouldn't even have a camera with me. But then, if it wasn't for my curiosity, I wouldn't even have died once, or for that matter I wouldn't even have started this journey.

It took me a while, but I eventually figured out that I'm in Finland. This close to home. After everything I've been through, I feel that I've had enough, so I wanted to take the plane that would take me back. Unfortunately, the next flight would be within days from now. I might as well walk there on foot. So that's why I'm on a boat now, headed to Denmark. Even when headed home, it looks like my journey is far from over.


	43. Chapter 43

I don't know how to describe this exactly, but with me being on one side of the world one moment, then instantly on another side of it the other moment,... well, the day was ending in Hong Kong, but here in Europe it's just beginning. If I spent time in an airplane, I might have gotten some rest, but I was teleported (for a lack of better terms) here. Would "jump-lag" be a proper word to use?

Anyway, at times I didn't even know whether I was seeing things or not. Okay, it wouldn't be the first time I saw things, but this... I mean, shortly after arriving here in Denmark, I stopped by an Octan gas-station, hoping to get myself some food. The station in question was made out of bricks, except that none of them appear to be held together by concrete, or any form of it. And the gas-attendant, as well as (some of) his customers, didn't appear to have fingers on their hands. Instead, each one of them had two... what I can only describe as flaps, on each hand, which they wrap around whatever they want to hold on to. The streets, or the cars, haven't figured out which one, but either one is that small that the cars that drive around here can only hold the driver. And these cars, too, appeared to be made out of some kind of bricks.

Now that I've walked a little further away, I've seen how these bricks are put together. I'm not sure how this is even possible, but apparently, these bricks are made in such a way that they connect to each other like pieces of a puzzle. And once together, they don't easily fall apart. This appeared interesting, though I'm not sure I'd like to live in such a house myself.

I've tried to find a train that would take me to Germany, from which I hope to find my way back home. I found it, but that's not what I'm writing this for. The train in question is quite... unusual, at best. You, the passenger, along with a possible companion (not the case with me), are sitting inside some kind of capsule, which is mounted onto the train's wagon. It appeared nice to be on at first, but now that I'm on it, I'm afraid my capsule will fall off any second. Though I've already been through a whole lot of things so far and survived (usually just barely, once... not so much), I'm not so sure this is any less dangerous than before.

Friday, August 15th 2008:

Somewhere along the way, I fell asleep. Can you blame me? I didn't even count up all the hours that I was awake, with the differences in time (depending on the zone) I wouldn't even know from what hour I'd have to count up. I ended up in Berlin, where I was woken up by the ticket-agents. I couldn't explain them what got me as tired as I was, luckily they didn't care about that. Anyway, they did believe that I ended up here accidentally, so there wasn't much they did.

While looking for a way home, I stumbled in on a leaflet, that asked whether "I", or anyone seeing it, would be interested in going to Romania. I was, some time ago. If you remember, I hoped to go from the States, to Australia, from which I would take a plane to Eastern Europe and find my way back from there. What I forgot to mention, is that I hoped to make it to Romania, which is notorious for many legends, monsters and things the like. Unfortunately, after what I've seen, I have no doubt there actually may be some truth to all those stories, therefor I'm not so sure I still want to go anywhere near Romania. Some courage or sense for adventure I have. I'm beginning to wonder whether those Japanese folks didn't just tell me things.

Afraid of ending up asleep in a train again, and thereby ending up further away from where I was headed, I decided to follow the rest of the way on foot, or through hitch-hiking when necessary. This way, I happen upon a house, completely secluded from all civilisation. That secluded, I wonder if the man living here ever even goes out to meet with people. This man, forgot his full name but his last name's Daninsky, said he finds himself more at peace in this area. If that's how he feels, who am I to question that?

I do believe that I should mention the following, though. Outside his mansion, there's this grave. On it's own, that doesn't mean much, but what if I told you that whoever lies in it is at least seven feet long? Not to mention that there's this electrical generator placed right beside the grave, although Daninsky said he doesn't use any electricity here. If so, then what's that generator doing here? And next to a grave? Does this man try to revive the dead or something? Much like that mad scientist did in the earlier nineteenth century? Frankenstein, I believe his name was. Also, among this man's belongings is an urne. One of those special ones that hold the ashes of a beloved. The urn, however, was marked with the name "Orlock". I'm not sure, but that name for some reason sounded familiar. When I asked Daninsky about it, he said it's the same name of a vampire that once appeared in Berlin. That is, if I believe in that sort of things. There was a strange tone in his voice when he said that, though, almost as if he wanted to look like a skeptic, but is really a believer.

Hoping the man would crack at a point, I decided to bring up other vampire stories that I've heard of, like the one about Dracula, late nine-teenth century. Daninsky refuted that story, however, as he knows that there have been many people, who heard of the legend, who later claimed that name as their own, as they felt that their reign of terror mimicked that of the legendary Dracula. In other words, he was a little like me, aware of many stories, but not much of a believer, until he's seen things. Likely, he too has seen things, but afraid that he won't be believed, he tries to hide it.

Anyway, now I'm in one of the mansion's rooms. I'd try to sleep, but I'm still suffering from "jump-lag", so I have a hard time doing as much. I should note, however, that while Daninsky claims this area to be very quiet, I've heard some very disturbing noises. I don't know how to describe it, except as though there's some kind of monster outside, very close to the mansion.

Another thought crossed my mind. Since there's no electricity, all light I've got so I can write in this journal, is from the full moon. I've seen werewolves before, so is it possible that there may be one nearby? But the only people here are Daninsky and me. Unless Daninsky is the werewolf. Okay, that's crazy talk. Maybe if I check it out, I'll find that there's a reasonable explanation for all this.


	44. Chapter 44

Saturday, August 16th 2008:

Looking back at my last entry, I'm beginning to wonder how one would define "reasonable" in this world. It turned out I was right to think there was a werewolf. He was chained in a barn, where he was to stay the whole night, until the moon didn't show itself in the skies no more. I thought that if he didn't see me, he wouldn't be more agitated, and therefor ignore me. But there was one important detail about werewolves that I forgot: that they don't need to see you to know that you're there.

It wasn't long before I heard something snap. I immediately realized that the beast was free. I heard it slowly walk out of the barn, but as his breathing became louder I realized just how close he was getting. I know I should be used to encountering such things by now, but everything else was either not interested in me, could be negotiated with, or I was just lucky. Here, all I could think of doing was waking up Daninsky, hoping that he'd know what to do as he's the one keeping him here.

Still thinking about a reasonable explanation, I had no reason to think that Daninsky was this beast. If he were, then he'd have known better than to invite someone to stay in his house. Otherwise he's either overconfident of his security messures, or he's just a psychotic guy that feels no remorse for who he kills. Once I realized that Daninsky wasn't anywhere in the mansion, I had no other option but to fight the wolf myself. Some would say that I should run for help, but despite the light of the moon, the trees didn't allow much light to penetrate through, so it was to dark for me to run through. In other words, that would've been a death trap. If I'm to choose between slight chance of survival or certain death... well you know.

I tried to use my Swiss knife to keep him at a distance, but the wolf was too smart for that. If the legends are true, then only silver can kill it, and it knew that. I had to do other things to keep it at a distance, like throwing things at it. Even if I had the strength of ten men, I'd still be no match for a werewolf, so what other option did I have? Luckily, throwing the urn that had Orlock's ashes helped greatly, as the ashes blinded him long enough. I tried killing it with my knife, but that only slowed him down. I had to get to the kitchen, where I could use some bigger knives, of which I can only assume they were made out of silver as they nailed him down. When that happened, the wolf started to look more human. That's when I could see it for myself, that Daninsky was a werewolf. But the fact that he kept silver in his mansion meant that he knew he may break out, so people could defend themselves when needed. I've got to hand it to the man, for a werewolf he was a nice guy. Whoever said that one who becomes a werewolf is cursed (meaning being punished for something bad they did), is gravely mistaking. That, or the one who cursed him is a psychotic bastard. And why is it that both ideas seem equally sensible now?

Anyway, after I was sure he was dead, I decided I couldn't stay in here much longer, so I packed my stuff together and ran off. I had to change clothes, however, as I was covered in Daninsky's blood. If anyone saw that, how am I supposed to explain that? That I just killed a werewolf? Didn't think so.

I must say that the surrounding area became quite foggy when I left. It was as though Daninsky's death had a direct effect on this region. That, or I was just a little shaken up about this, so I started seeing things. I've killed vampires before, but they were easy to deal with, as they weren't made to last. But this was a werewolf, which formed a real challenge.

Oh well, after my running, I managed to hitch a ride with a truck. Although my native language is similar to German, and therefor I understand the driver a little, I wouldn't know how to reply to any of his questions. I tried to make it clear to him to just drive as far away from here as possible. I'm not sure if he understood me, but he told me he had to go as far as Munich. At this moment, I didn't care much about where I'd end up.

Right now, I'm at the airport, waiting for the plane to take off. I'm not going home yet, as it will take some time again before there'll be another plane that would go there. What's wrong with moving in and/or out of my country these last few years? I'm guessing that it's split from last year is still causing some confusion to other countries, or the politicians running my country were to bent on splitting it up, they forgot it still needs to be properly governed. In any case, my best chances are to take a plane that goes to Paris, and I'll have to find my way home from there. Why not? I remember to have visited Paris before, but always under supervision, by teachers or parents. Now that I'm going by myself, I wonder what Paris would look like now.


	45. Chapter 45

Sunday, August 17th 2008:

Why do I keep ending up in these situations? As I was about to board my plane yesterday, some guy went nuts and started to shoot people. Although I do believe he had a good reason to react that way, as there were people among the ones he was shooting that wielded guns as well. Perhaps they were the ones he was trying to shoot. But then who are they? Or who's he? Or his friends who joined in? I must say, for some reason there was a very easy way to distinguish one party from the other. The guy who started shooting, and his friends, wore fur coats, whereas the other ones wore leather ones. Very much like those vampires I met in Washington D.C.

In any case, because of the shooting, many flights have been delayed, including the one I was supposed to be on. So rather than waiting for the next one, I decided to take another flight to Marseille. From there, I should be able to find my way to Paris, which I have. But getting there was, though quickly, quite the adventure.

When I left the airport, I tried to use however little knowledge of French that I have to tell the taxi-driver to get me to the nearest train-station. I can't say I understood much of anything he was telling me, as French from this region resembles Spanish a lot more than French, but he appeared delighted. Not so surprising, as his taxi was equipped to be a race-car, so he was just glad he could drive fast again. This way, while any other car would take more than thirty minutes to get from the airport to the train-station, this one needed only a few seconds. Can't say I'm used to driving this fast in a car, but I've been in a spaceplane and I survived, so this was nothing. Still, I suppose being in a (sort of) race was a new experience. Wonder how well he'd do when racing against these guys that the helicopter in the States mentioned to me. Herbie and McQueen, I believe their names were. The driver told me something, which I didn't understand entirely. I mean, I know he told me he didn't understand it, but I didn't quite understand what he didn't understand.

No matter. I've arrived in Paris, but the last thirty-six hours have been quite tiring, so I'm just gonna lie down and sleep in my hotel room for the rest of the day.

Monday, August 18th 2008:

I regret deciding to come over here. When I was younger, seeing a city like Paris may have been exciting, but now I've seen so many things, Paris isn't any more exciting than my hometown. But that wasn't the only thing about Paris that bothered me.

When trying to look for some food, there weren't many places where I could get any, unless I were to visit all the fancy restaurants, where I'd sit for hours on in and still haven't eaten anything. I remember someone telling me that, according to the Guide Duchemin, you can eat very well in Paris, or all over France. Indeed you can, when you're more patient than God or the devil.

And while we're on the subject, I met with this rabbi, who said his name was Salomon. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have spoken to him, as I usually mind my own business, but he started talking to me so what was I to do? He saw how packed up I was, so he wondered if I was a tourist. I was lucky that this rabbi could speak English, or else I wouldn't have been able to understand anything he said. Anyway, I indeed told him I was indeed a tourist, who's been all around the world, and am now on my way home. That's when things got out of hand, as he wished me that "Jahwe would be with me". I laughed at that, and told him that Jahwe, i.e. God, has been with me just one too many times so far. He of course didn't believe me, but who am I to care. That guy believed that God cannot be enough with people, but unlike me he has never met the guy upstairs, so he wouldn't know. Anyone else would start to call me a blasphemer, but he chose to use a less sensible insult: Nazi. He worships a dictator, and yet I'm the Nazi? Thinking about it, it's a little ironic. I didn't think I should stay with this man much longer so I wanted to go away. Unfortunately, he didn't want me to go anywhere, and held my arm tightly. I must say he was quite strong for an old man. In any case, the only way I knew to have him let go (I tried to pull, but to no avail) was to punch him in the stomach. That's when he let go and I could escape.

I know what some of you are thinking: that it's cowardice to beat up an old man. Maybe, but an old man who takes advantage of this, in any possible way, in this case to use physical force, is no better than someone who would beat him. Besides, I wanted to go away, but he wouldn't let me. Had he let me go, I wouldn't have laid a finger on him. Every which way you put it, it was self-defence.

In any case, that was the moment that I decided to get out of Paris as soon as I can, before he can alert the authorities. Luckily I didn't tell him where I was from, or else I'd have the police over at my home as well. I can only hope that he didn't recognize my accent, though.


	46. Chapter 46

When the train had entered my home-country, I felt relieved. I mean, after having been through all the things I've been through, I was very eager to be back where I'm most familiar, and have some much deserved rest (and a hot shower). Unfortunately, the train will not stop in my hometown, so I'll have to get off and find another way to return home.

I would take another train, as that would have been the easiest way. But thus far, I've spend so much money already, I'm not sure if I'd be able to afford another paid trip. Not to mention that I'd best save as much as I can for food. So I'll have to rely on hitch-hiking again.

Okay, so I got off the train, left the station, tried to hitch a ride, but didn't have much luck with that so far. It's unfortunate that out here cargo-trains are a little harder to come by, unlike the States. Still, I suppose I shouldn't complain. While on the side of the highway, trying to hitch a ride, I still walked a little, or else I would be standing on the same spot the whole day and still not have found a ride. Anyway, walking like that did have it's advantages. Or else I wouldn't have found this one place where I could eat, haven't eaten much today. Plus otherwise I wouldn't have been able to write all this down.

Come to think of it, I think I've been around in these parts before. Perhaps when I was still a kid or something, when I was on some kind of family outing, whether I liked it or not. Maybe that's why even the bartender looked familiar.

No, there's a different reason why he looked familiar. I don't know why, but that picture that Jess had send me, of some group of people back in the early twentieth century, it popped back in my mind. I used my cell-phone to check for that picture, and I was right. This one man that was on the picture, of whom I was sure I had seen him before, it's the same guy that's tending this bar. Strange, this bartender may be old, but if he were the same man that's on that picture, he would be one hundred and fifty years old. How's that possible?

I would like to investigate that a little further, but I've got other things on my mind that I must attend to first. Once I finish eating, I'd best go away, but I should remember this address, so I'd be able to find this place again later.

Tuesday, August 19th 2008:

For reasons I mentioned the other day, I had no other alternative but to sleep in the woods. I couldn't be sure however, but there were voices that woke me up somewhere in the middle of the night. Those voices belonged to little people. These people were about the same size as those blue creatures I mentioned before, safe for a few differences. For one, they looked a lot more human, not to mention that their hats would make some kind of ringing sound when they get spooked. I only know that because the very sight of me frightened them.

It is not impossible that I dreamt to have seen them. Although, after everything, I have no reason to believe that these things weren't real either. Now I have no idea whether I have or have not lost my sanity so far. I'll have to get back home as soon as possible.

Finally, I've found someone who would take me home. But even then, the only reason they did is because one of them was a cop. He saw me standing at the side of the highway, which isn't very safe. So concerned for my safety, he decided to give me a ride. It is a little convenient that both the cop and his friend (although I have reasons to think that friend is more than a friend to him) happen to be from the same city that I'm from, but I suppose I should be glad that I've found a ride home at all.

Other than that cop getting calls from his partner (probably wondering where he is), this trip was without any real incidents. I have returned to my hometown, but I'm not home just yet. But when I am, I'm sure I'll be too tired to do anything at all. Be it unpacking, having a shower, or even make one last entry in this journal, so I'd better write this down before it slipped my mind. Never before in my life did I feel as relieved as I do now, now that I've returned here. This trip has been... educational, at best, frightening at worst, but altogether, now that things are a little quiet, it was nice to have experienced it all. Wonder what I should do for my next trip.


	47. Chapter 47

Postscript:

It's been three months since last summer. I must say that my travelling has left it's mark at several places.

The fight between Darkwing Duck and those colored people, for instance, had become something that attracted a lot of attention. Many people would come and film what's going on there, only to put those films on the internet.

That beast that I released in North Vancouver has ravaged the entire area. But it would also look as though the public also blame that beast for other things that have happened, before I even released it. This could mean only one thing: that this beast isn't the only one out there, but nobody knows that, nor would they care as all they'd need is just the one scape-goat.

In Germany, some more blood sheds were occurring as well. Accept that here the dead bodies that were found showed only three types of injuries that caused their deaths. Some were ripped to shreds, others were drained of their blood, the rest were crushed by something very strong. I don't know if this has anything to do with me having been there, but it's no coincidence that these things started shortly after I killed Daninsky. So far, I haven't found much of an explanation as to what's happening, but I hope to find something very soon.

As for the conspiracy-theorizing community, my mentioning that I was arrested for being anywhere near Creek Mountain, while nothing else happened at other military bases, helped to confirm some ideas that people have. It's been theorized that the military base in Creek mountain hold something called a stargate. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but I guess this is interesting to look into.

Then I haven't begun about a shooting incident at Sunnydale High, that happened just last month. I wasn't involved with the incident, but if we are to believe some religious fanatics, I am responsible for bringing this to them. When school started again, you can imagine how surprised the teachers were when they found the Religious Education classroom all ravaged and dusty. Until that was fixed, they decided to not teach anything religious. To fanatics, that meant that God was banned from the school, and therefor couldn't protect the people there. Another idea that heavily contradicts the notion of God being almighty and all-loving.

Speaking of which, when putting my journal on the net for all of you to read, I got some mixed reactions. Some people, for instance, could not understand how stupid I was to "misinterpret" God's intentions (whatever that means), while others couldn't understand that I'd denounce him to be the real saviour and yet help other people to believe some god they don't know, i.e. Daizyujin (which nobody could spell right), that he is the real one. I never suggested anything like it. Daizyujin is just another god, but he doesn't demand anything from anybody. If he did, I don't think even the Zyurangers would be with him up in heaven. The only thing I did was earn his respect. And that's the difference between him and God, the latter of whom would demand our respect, even if... no, especially when he doesn't deserve it. I for one am glad he's done for. But anyway, in reply to what these religious fanatics imply, I do not tell people to start believing in Daizyujin, nor do I start chanting some songs to him that mean nothing to me, or do I uphold traditions for no good reason. In other words, I'm not trying to start another silly cult.

I also recieved a few death threats that demanded me to delete my journal, or else... well you know. If I were to do that, I'd be supporting those who would kill you for any reason at all. So I didn't delete it, obviously.

Also, there were quite a few people who did their homework. That monster I mentioned to have seen in Japan, which nobody else could see, some theorize that it was a shinigami (god of death). The only reason they could think of as to why I was the only one seeing it, was because I've died once.

Which brings me to the following: when reading in my story that there's a murderer on the loose in New Jersey, West-Virginia, Illinois, Texas, California,... officials started quite a few manhunts. Some of them returned empty-handed, while others... didn't return at all.

On top of that, upon reading that the Family collected monsters, their convent in Jamestown was raided, and they indeed found every single virus that has plagued the planet before. Not to mention that now people have now completely lost faith in the Family, so they too are out of business. That's one religion less to worry about.

Then there've been these messages I recieved from lesbian women, who for some reason were convinced that I was a woman too. Why would they do that? Because I read books rather than magazines? Because I actually express emotions? Because I have no interest in sports whatsoever (or at least not the big ones like soccer or car-racing)? Because I'd rather defend than attack people? It's funny to see what would go through some people's minds.

That's all for general messages. To talk about some of the individual ones: there was this guy that called himself Ned, who plans to work on some sort of survival guide for travelling around the world. He wanted to know whether I could give him some tips. The only valid tip I could give him was that nothing I'd tell him could possibly prepare him, or anybody, for travelling around. At best, he should travel himself, then write down some of his own findings.

Not sure I should mention this, but this guy that called himself Ruxpin was among the people who wanted me to delete the story, albeit for different reasons. He thought that the story upsets too many children. That's the only excuse he had to demand of me to either delete the story or make it more kid-friendly. I refused, of course. I wrote whatever happened to me, and if he doesn't like it, he shouldn't read it. Same goes for the children.

If you wondered, yes I quit my job of cleaning factories and took a job at SGS. It's been interesting so far. Not only does it promise the excitement that wasn't in my last job, I also got to hear of some people of whom I didn't even know they existed. These people are some very famous archaeologists, paleontologists and whatnot: Daniel Jackson, Henry Jones and his son, Ross Gellar,... I should add, however, that our job isn't that easy, what with this woman, Croft I believe, who considers us as opponents for some game she plays. And from what I heard about her (no, I haven't actually met her myself) she's quite the dangerous one, for someone who's past her forties by now.

I know, this statement may seem inconsistent with my mentioning before that I've been losing my sanity over too much excitement. And you're right, I would have, but when I started doing beastfist, it helped me relax. Even my sensei didn't recognize the animal that I seemed to be mimicking. But with me having had a few experiences with dinosaurs last summer, I have an idea of what animal that I'm mimicking.

With my martial arts skills and the magic that I gained from Magiel, I've made a great asset to SGS. Not to mention that with me working for SGS, and every now and then doing something for SPD, I got myself two giant vehicles, which could turn useful when it comes to it. I must say, I was afraid of going to the Republic of Greater East Asia, yet it's that particular area that's changed my life forever.

On a more personal note, Erica broke up with me. Although she had that special... bond with me, what with this one thing she's shared with me and nobody else, we still live quite far away from each other. With the possibility that she may meet someone like me in the New England area, she decided she shouldn't wait for me to come visit her (every once in a long while), so she thought of breaking up. I don't blame her for doing that. Don't think I'll find anyone like her here, but one can always dream, can't he?

As for Jess, she still contacts me every once in a while, but not to tell me what else she's done with the Necronomicon. She's too busy with college to even try something else. But I guess that since I've helped her, people are keeping a distance from her now, so she won't run into any more trouble.

I only wish Hana would get in touch again. I mean, she's been keeping an eye on me for a long time and suddenly she didn't let me hear from her. It's not that I need her help now, but I just wonder why I haven't heard from her at all anymore. Plus, wouldn't you like to meet with someone who helped you from afar face-to-face?

So altogether, it's safe to say that since my trip around the world, my life has gotten better. I now have a better-paid job, actually do something I enjoy, have an interesting hobby, have some friends,... However, there have been rumors that living dragons have been seen in and around London. Like I said before, every time something's built up, there'll always be something to tear it down. If it were dragons, that would be something new. But anyway, so far they're just rumors. Even if there were some truth to it, I'm now better prepared for this than I've ever been for anything like this.

**THE END**


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